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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
GIFT OF
Professor Ralph Beals
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2008 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/fromfronttrenchpOOandr
FROM THE FRONT
FROM THE FRONT
TRENCH POETRY
SELECTED BY
LIEUTENANT C. E. ANDREWS
AVIATION SECTION, SIGNAi RESERVE CORPS
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY THE EDITOR
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1918
Copyright, 1918, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
TO
W. P. H.
9:
The royalties from the sale of this
book are to go to the
BRITISH RED CROSS FUND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the following publishers for
their courtesy in granting permission to include
the poems to which they own the copyright :
To Charles Scribner's Sons for "I Have a
Rendezvous with Death," from Poems by Alan
Seeger; To the John Lane Company for "At-
tack!", "Song of the Trench," and "The Ration
Rasher," from Songs from the Trenches by Capt.
C. W. Blackall, for "The Dead," and "The Sol-
dier," from Collected Poetns of Rupert Brooke;
To Messrs. Barse and Hopkins for "The Volun-
teer," and "Wounded," from Rhymes of a Red
Cross Man by Robert W. Service ; To the Hough-
ton Mifflin Company for "Ammunition Column,"
and "Signals," from The Guns by Gilbert
Frankau ; To Cassell and Company, Limited, for
the poems reprinted from the Ansae Book; To
Erskine Macdonald, Limited, for "War," and
"When I Come Home," from From an Outpost
and Other Poems by Leslie Coulson, for "Bal-
lade of a Cathedral Close," from Poems by Lieu-
Viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
tenant C. A. Macartney, for "To Sister E. W.,"
from From Field and Hospital by H. Smalley
Sarson, for "At Dawn in France," and "A Lark
above the Trenches," from The Undying Splen-
dor by Sergeant J. W. Streets, for "A Sonnet,"
from Railhead by Lieutenant Gilbert Waterhouse,
for "Twentieth Century Civilization," and "Mem-
ories," from Sunrise Dreams and other Poems by
Lieutenant Eric Fitzwater Wilkinson; To E. P.
Button & Company for "In the Morning," "Be-
fore the Charge," "Letters," and "Matey," from
Soldier Songs by Patrick MacGill.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Trench Poetry, Lieut. C. E. Andrews . . . xv
The Song of the Trench,
Capt. C. W. Blackall i
"Fall In," Sergt. Frank S. Brown .... 5
The Volunteer, Robert W. Service ... 10
Dawn in the Trenches, Eric Thirkell Cooper 13
The Trumpeter, Corp. W. Kersley Holmes . 14
A Song of the Air, "Observer, R. F. C." . . 16
Two Pictures, "Observer, R. F. C." ... 18
The Sailing of the Fleet,
Lieut. N. M. F. Corbett, R. N 20
The Men Behind the Tube (Torpedo-Boat
Destroyer Flotilla), Howard Steele . . 22
The Hounds of the Night,
"Etienne" (Lieut. R. N.) 26
Signals, Gilbert Frankau 28
Ammunition Column, Gilbert Frankau . . 31
Horse-Bathing Parade,
Corp. W. Kersley Holmes 34
The Mercy Ship, Eric Thirkell Cooper . . ^6
The Bathe, A. P. Herbert 38
ix
X CONTENTS
PAGE
Marching Song, C. J. N. (A. N. Z. A. C.) . 40
My Rifle, Sergt. Joseph Lee 43
The Happy Warrior (A Soliloquy), Some-
where in the Anzac Zone,
M. R. (A. N. Z. A. C.) 46
"Fags," Corp. Jack Turner 48
The Soldier Mood, Corp. W. Kersley Holmes 52
A Wail from Ordnance, Lieut. Kininmouth,
A. O. C 54
The Ration Rasher, Capt. C. W. Blackall . 57
Peter's Pudding, Corp. W. Kersley Holmes 59
Letters (Vermelles, August, 1915),
Patrick MacGill 61
No Man's Land, Capt. J. H. Knight-Adkin . 67
Night in the Trenches, Eric ^hirkell Cooper 70
Lines Written in a Fire Trench,
W. S. S. Lyon 72
A Quiet Night, Ronald Gurnet 74
In No Man's Land with the Night Patrol,
Capt. J. H. Knight-Adkin 75
Before the Charge (Loos, 1915),
Patrick MacGill 78
Neuve Chapelle, H. A. Nesbitt, M. A. . . 79
In the Morning (Loos, 1915),
Patrick MacGill 81
Twentieth Century Civilization,
Lieut. Eric Fitzwater Wilkinson, M. C. . . 85
CONTENTS XI
PAGE
"Attack !" Capt. C. W. Blackall 89
The Night Attack, Eric Thirkell Cooper . . 92
The Veteran, Sergt. Frank S. Brown ... 95
Wounded, Robert W. Service 100
Glory, Sergt. Frank S. Brown 107
Holding the Bridge, Arnold F. Graves . . 112
Next Morning, Lieut. E. A. Wodehouse . . 118
A Dawn in France, Sergt. J. W. Streets . . 121
Lines Written Somewhere in the North
Sea, Lieut. N. M. F. Corbett, R. N. . . 124
Ballad of a Cathedral Close,
Lieut. C. A. Macartney 127
When I Come Home, Leslie Coulson . . . 129
A Lark Above the Trenches,
Sergt. J. W. Streets 131
Four Rye Sheaves, Sergt. Joseph Lee . . . 132
Brown Eyes — Song, Frank E. Westbrook . . 134
Hill 60, C J. N. (A. N. Z. A. C.) . . . 135
Envoy, Capt. J. E. Stewart, N. C 136
To Sister E. W., H. Smalley Sarson . . . 138
The Boys Out There, Frank E. Westbrook . 139
The Choice, Eric Thirkell Cooper .... 141
Tommy and Fritz, Sergt. Joseph Lee . . . 143
Some Reflections on the Evacuation,
A. P. Herbert 146
On a Troop Ship, 1915, H. A 150
xii CONTENTS
PAGE
1915, H. A. Nesbitt, M. A 152
Easter at Ypres, W. S. S. Lyon I53
The Cathedral, William G. Shakespeare . . 155
Glimpse, Lieut. William Noel Hodgson . . 157
The Soldier, Rupert Brooke I59
Our Fathers, Capt. James Sprent .... 161
Before Action, Lieut. William Noel Hodgson 163
At Sea — Written on board a transport in the
Mediterranean, D. O. L 165
A Confession of Faith, Capt. James Sprent 167
"At Night Tide,"
2nd Lieut. H. E. Whiting-Baker .... 169
Sonnet— "Look Up, O Stricken Eyes That
Long Have Pored," Robert Nichols . . 171
The Silence, R. J. Godfrey (A. N. Z. A. C.) 172
"Go Tell Yon Shadow Stalking 'Neath
the Trees," Sergt. J. W. Streets ... 173
"I Have a Rendezvous vv^ith Death,"
Alan Seeger I74
The Dead, Rupert Brooke 176
The Graves of Gallipoli,
L. L. (A. N. Z. A. C.) 178
The Unburied, M. R. (N. Z. Headquarters) 181
"In Flanders Fields,"
Lieut. Col. John McCrae 183
A Dead German, Lieut. C. G. L. DuCann . 185
"I Tracked a Dead Man Down a Trench,"
W. S. S. Lyon 186
CONTENTS Xin
PAGE
Fallen, Corp. W. Kersley Holmes .... 189
A Grave in Flanders, Frederick George Scott 191
Memories,
Lieut. Eric Fitzwater Wilkinson, M. C. . . 193
The Volunteer, Herbert Asquith .... 197
"Goodbye" — Evacuation of Gallipoli, 191 5,
Frank E. Westbrook 199
Matey (Cambrin, May, 1915), Patrick MacGill 203
For Our Soldiers at the Front,
Rev. Thomas Tiplady 205
Sonnet — "Coming in Splendour Thro' the
Golden Gate," Lieut. Gilbert Waterhouse 207
War, Leslie Coulson 208
Index of Authors 209
Index of First Lines 217
TRENCH POETRY
The poetry written in the trenches has become
one of the most striking Hterary phases of the
War. Within the last three years, thousands
of poems from the front have appeared in
newspapers and magazines throughout England.
Many of them later have been collected in thin
little volumes by the authors, or sometimes they
have been printed by friends as memorials to
soldier-authors who have fallen. There are al-
ready more than a hundred such volumes and
others keep appearing.
The authors, of course, are not the mere rank
and file. The average soldier's gun is mightier
than his pen. He fights or waits or suffers with-
out formulating his thoughts, if, indeed, he
thinks at all of the real meaning of his experi-
ences. The songs which Tommy Atkins sings
are not very interesting without Tommy to sing
them. The nonsensical words of his popular
choruses are mere pegs upon which he hangs his
ideals of home, peace, or romance:
XV
Xvi FROM THE FRONT
We've each our Tipperary — near by or wildly
far;
For some it means a fireside, for some it means
a star ;
For some it means a journey by homely roads
they know,
For some a spirit's venture where none but theirs
may go.
But the poetry of the trenches is written, most
of it, by the men of cultivation, — doctors, dons,
journalists, actors, university students. Though
two or three of the volumes — and these among
the best — are from men who had been navvies,
miners, and farm roustabouts, for the most part
the authors have written verse before.
Men of a thoughtful turn of mind, or with an
eye for the significance of facts, feel the desire
for self-expression in the midst of their experi-
ences. And the forms of expression for men of
action are naturally the brief ones, famikr let-
ters and short lyrics. These are written in mo-
ments of snatched leisure, sometimes in a camp
or billet or dugout, or even in a fire-trench ; and
many are written to while away the enforced
leisure of a convalescent hospital. But little of
this poetry is "emotion recollected in tranquil-
lity." It is the expression of men who in the
midst of action see the picturesque or philo-
TRENCH POETRY xvii
sophic aspect of their experience and try to re-
cord it. Sergeant John WilHam Streets, who
was killed last year, writing of his own poems
said : "They were inspired while I was in the
trenches, where I have been so busy that I have
had little time to polish them. I have tried to
picture some thoughts that pass through a man's
brain when he dies. I may not see the end of
the poems, but hope to live to do so. We sol-
diers have our views of life to express, though
the boom of death is in our ears. We try to
convey something of what we feel in this great
conflict to those who think of us, and sometimes,
alas! mourn our loss. We desire to let them
know that in the midst of our keenest sadness
for the joy of life we leave behind, we go to meet
death grim-lipped, clear-eyed and resolute-heart-
ed." A poem written within the sound of guns
is rarely a great contribution to literature, and a
critical reader may find barely a half dozen
poems in these volumes which he calls great
poetry. For example, not even Alan Seeger or
Rupert Brooke, the best known of the soldier
poets, attained the superb excellence of Mr.
Masefield's "August 1914." One must remember
that the finest poems of the Civil War were not
written by the "forgers of experience," but by
"men with the sense of words," — Whitman, Low-
XVIH FROM THE FRONT
ell and Emerson. Probably there is something
in the Wordsworthian association of tranquillity
and poetic composition. Trench verse is usually
the work of men who, though not trained and
critical poets, are still impelled to write of what
they see and feel. They wisely make few at-
tempts in the exalted vein. The splendid bursts
of patriotism are only for the few great poets in
their finer moments ; for such poems require not
CDfily exalted feeling, but the sureness and com-
mand of the highest art. And no failure can be
more complete than the failure to achieve the
high style. These soldier poets wisely do not
attempt it. The poetasters at home write of
war in grandiose periodic cadences ; the poetry
of men who fight has Httle of rhetoric, few fine-
sounding words. They write of what they see,
hear, feel, and think, in direct and vivid lan-
guage ; they are not afraid of dialect, slang, or
even vulgarity.
Though one must not expect to find many
poems that stand out individually as great, a
volume of verse chosen from these little books
by men whose names, with rare exceptions, the
kingdom of letters has recognized, can give one
a more vivid sense of the actualities of war, its
transfiguring glories and unnamable horrors, than
hundreds of reports, accounts, and discussions.
TRENCH POETRY xix
These poems show the spirit which actuates the
men ; the men themselves, the facts of their daily
life, their duties, their humor, their sufferings,
their recreations; the madness, and horror of
the attack itself ; what soldiers think about when
they are alone ; and also their heart-uttered mem-
ories of dear comrades fallen.
Many of these poems are bits of impression-
istic description, what daily scenes at the front
look like to men who are part of them. These
are sharply etched pictures of vivid realities ; they
give us the sensations of men on duty in a listen-
ing post, a scene in a dugout, dawn or night in
the trenches, planes dropping down on the aero-
drome after a reconnaissance, the distribution of
mail after dark, a signal post or a battalion head-
quarters during an action. Among the poets who
do this sort of thing best are Captain Knight-
Adkin, whose contributions to the "Spectator"
have been widely quoted, Eric Thirkell Cooper,
author of "Soliloquies of a Subaltern," and Gil-
bert Frankau, whose volume "The Guns" is one
of the most real pictures that have come from the
front.
Sometimes with this strong sense of fact there
is a keen appreciation of the beauty and "magic"
which may be anywhere if one's eyes can see
more than the grim actualities. There are gleams
XX FROM THE FRONT
of moonlight on wire entanglements and gorgeous
pyrotechnics in red and white flares and star
shells that light the way to aeath. Patrick Mac-
Gill, author of "Soldier Songs," sees charming
fancies in the glow-worms and toad-stools
around him as he watches and listens through
the night :
But these things you'll see if you come out with
me,
And sit by my side in a shell-shovelled hole,
Where the fairy-bells croon to the ivory moon
When the soldier is out on a listening-patrol.
Then there are the romantic poets who write
only of the beauty. They eagerly look for it as
a relief from the grimness and pain of their sur-
roundings. They sing of a riot of red poppies
in a Flanders field, or a lark whose dawn song
is wholly oblivious to the mortal madness below
him. These themes are great favorites with the
trench poets. A more unusual subject is "The
Horse Bathing Parade" of Corporal J. Kersley
Holmes, who shows a painter's eye for fine color
effects. A theme which several of the poets
have chosen is some wonderful old chateau
haunted by the exquisite beauty of the dear
dead chatelaines of another time, now inhabited
by hurrying aids or swearing sergeants. This
TRENCH POETRY xxi
theme, rich in fine sentiment, appears at its best
in Alan Seeger's two rare sonnets on "Belling-
lise" :
Here, where in happier times the huntsman's
horn
Echoing from far made sweet midsummer
eves.
Now serried cannon thunder night and morn.
Tearing with iron the greenwood's tender
leaves.
The finer spirits like Seeger who go through the
world on a knight-errant quest for beauty find it
even where most men see but ugliness and pain.
The realistic poets do their best work in scenes
of the attack. There are, naturally, hundreds of
these descriptions — every kind of attack and
every sort of moment. Sergeant Frank Brown's
"Glory" describes how "five volunteers for hell"
rescued a Maxim gun left stranded after "a.
little set-back." Arnold Graves' "Holding the
Bridge" is an exciting narrative of an incident
that shows that the individual man may be of no
less importance today than in a twelfth century
fight. Lieutenant Eric Wilkinson's "Twentieth
Century Civilization" tells how it feels to receive
the enemy's attack, and the last stanza from Cap-
tain C. W. Blackall's "Attack!" shows how one
feels after successfully taking a trench. These are
XXll FROM THE FRONT
poems of war written by men who know ; every
phrase rings as a harsh and ugly fact. And with
all that, stands out the grit and heroism of the
men.
But even in the midst of a fight there can be
humor in the trenches. It is not a forced humor
either; the jokes suggest the natural remarks of
men who have been able to keep their sense of
proportion. A feeling of physical fitness, too,
makes one willing to enjoy what there is in the
present moment. The "Anzac Book," a collec-
tion of verse, prose, and drawings by the men in
the peninsula of Gallipoli, shows how much fun
is possible even in the face of suffering, death,
and defeat. As examples of this. Lieutenant
Kininmouth's "Wail from Ordnance" and M.
R.'s "Happy Warrior" are included in the present
volume. Patrick MacGill's fine Irish wit delight-
fully permeates his work, and Sergeant Joseph
Lee's "Ballads of Battle" has some very good
things. Men's sense of humor is hard to kill;
sometimes it thrives rollickingly in the trenches
— witness Captain Bruce Bairnsfather !
The soldier's meditations when he is alone
are — like those of other people — on the subjects
of love, home, and himself. There are many
poems expressing what he feels through long
TRENCH POETRY xxiii
cold watches and heart-breaking silences —
thoughts of quiet English lanes, Australian
farms, or Canadian lakes and pine forests;
thoughts of brown eyes, of farewells, or of re-
gretted moments. Poems of this sort are writ-
ten, of course, at all times in absence, but these,
through the circumstances, have a special in-
terest for us. Of the thoughtful poems on death
and self, the world has already accepted Alan
Seeger's "I have a Rendezvous with Death" and
Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" as truly great.
Another poet, Sergeant J. W. Streets, author of
"The Undying Splendor," has done, among other
things, a sonnet-sequence, which should give him
a place among these greatest soldier poets. His
volume reflects an intense love of life together
with a resolute facing of death, a spirit which
links him with Alan Seeger.
The thought of death runs through all the vol-
umes from the trenches. There are many elegies,
both general and personal, and many a gay poem
goes into the minor for a single stanza. Corporal
Lee prefaces his volume with —
I writ these songs in a dead man's book ;
I stole the strain from a dead man's look;
And if much of death there may seem to be
'Tis because the dead are so dear to me.
XXIV FROM THE FRONT
I do not mean that the body of this verse is
gloomy in tone. The thought of death does
not appear as a "Thanatopsis" mood of intro-
spection. Death is merely a great fact with
which one becomes familiar, so familiar that it
may be even jested with. The soldier's atti-
tude is that of a man who plays his game and
accepts all its conditions. Captain C. W. Black-
all's "Song of the Trench" puts it well :
Perhaps a bullet may find its mark,
And then there's a funeral after dark;
And you say, as you lay him beneath the sod,
A sportsman's soul has gone to his God.
Behind the trench in the open ground,
There's a little cross and a little mound ;
And if at your heart-strings you feel a wrench,
Remember he died for his blooming trench —
Yes, he died like a man for his trench.
In the elegies, with the mood of intense personal
loss there is this same attitude of acceptance —
no revolt against fate, or protest against war or
the world. These poets are also soldiers. Their
elegies are perhaps the best work of the trench
poets. Every volume has several of them, with
titles like "Fallen," "My Chum," "Missing," "In
Flanders Fields," "Memories," "The Unburied."
They are straightforward and simple, most of
them, with the sentiment of men who feel more
TRENCH POETRY XXV
than they show. The Australian Frank E. West-
brook's "Good-Bye," which was written at Gal-
lipoH, distinctly has this mood ; and I know of no
poem with a pathos that so takes one by the
throat as Patrick MacGill's "Matey." For an
elegy in the dignified style for a public occasion
we have, in Alan Seeger's "Ode in Memory of
the American Volunteers Fallen for France." an
ode equalled but two or three times in all Ameri-
can literature.
In the poetry of Seeger, who I think stands out
as chief of the fighting poets, English or Ameri-
can, there is preeminently a sense of the exalt-
ing power of the war on men's minds. Beyond
the mere praise of the accepted soldier virtues,
he sings the choicer spirit's lofty freedom from
the meaner interests of the world. He sees the
fighting hosts transfigured with a grander cos-
mic beauty ; they are playing the great drama of
the universe as its Author planned it; they are
moved by the forces which guide Arcturus with
his sons. This larger vision in which men tran-
scend themselves and see all life in true propor-
tion comes seldom even to poets in times of
peace. But a sense of
— kinship with the stars that only war
Is great enough to lift men's spirit to.
XXVI FROM THE FRONT
more and more recurs in recent literature.
Sergeant Streets has it in these lines from the
"Requiem" :
Theirs is the mighty music of the fadeless stars ;
The chant of Life, exultant with high ecstasy;
The strength of suffering gods who toil with
many scars
To wrest promethean fire for dead humanity.
Beyond our ken, beyond the limit of the years
They sweep into the soul the freedom of the
spheres.
Many of the finer war poems present the con-
flict as a merging of the individual into the spirit
of his race — the mood of Hardy's novels, or
the race merged into the soul of humanity — the
mood of Whitman's poetry. This unity of past
and present in the ever repeated struggles of
history appears in Corporal Lee's "1815-1915:
One Hundred Years Ago Today, — To My
Grandfather Who Fought at Waterloo," and
again in Corporal Holmes' "Somewhere in
France" :
Long, long ago the English hosts in sunshine and
in rain,
Came tramping where their stubborn sons now
march to war again.
TRENCH POETRY XXVll
Their bowmen and their halberdiers in mud and
mist and snow,
Went swinging stoutly forward as our khaki
columns go;
The poplars watched the knights ride by with
sword and mace and lance,
As they watched us through the sleet-storm in
these leafless woods of France.
An exalted patriotism in which the poet rises
above his own personality in the great desire to
be part of the eternal spirit of England is the
theme of Rupert Brooke's glorious sonnet "The
Soldier" ; and the thought of England on the
eve of war united to the England of all other
older wars, through the repeated farewells and
repeated sacrifices which the same ancient soil
has known from age to age, is the mood of the
greatest poem of recent years, Mr. Masefield's
"August, 1914."
War is having an exalted effect on men's hearts
when they think in terms of infinite relation-
ships. And we see this effect in the letters as
well as in the poems of the soldier poets. "If I
should fall do not grieve for me. I shall be one
with the sun and the flowers," wrote Leslie Coul-
son, author of "From an Outpost," in one of his
last letters. This is a feeling that comes to one
who thinks of the thousand struggles of history
XXVlll FROM THE FRONT
and the million repetitions of heroic deaths, while
Nature, the Neutral, looks on impartially; the
stars that shone on Loos and Neuve Chapelle
looked coldly down on Cressy and Waterloo.
This cosmic sense revealed to the chosen souls
who fight at the front may reflect through the
world behind the lines and make men rise to
interests greater than their own, and see their
earth in a larger perspective.
FROM THE FRONT
FROM THE FRONT
THE SONG OF THE TRENCH
December, ipi4
This is the song of the blooming trench:
It's sung by us and it's sung by the French ;
It's probably sung by the German Huns ;
But it isn't all beer, and skittles, and buns.
It's a song of water, and mud and slime,
And keeping your eyes skinned all the time.
Though the putrid "bully" may kick up a stench,
Remember, you've got to stick to your trench —
Yes, stick like glue to your trench.
You dig while it's dark, and you work while it's
light,
And then there's the "listening post" at night.
2 FROM THE FRONT
Though you're soaked to the skin and chilled to
the bone;
Though your hands are like ice, and your feet
like stone;
Though your watch is long, and your rest is brief.
And you pray like hell for the next relief;
Though the wind may howl, and the rain may
drench,
Remember, you've got to stick to your trench-
Yes, stick like mud to your trench.
Perhaps a bullet may find its mark.
And then there's a funeral after dark;
And you say, as you lay him beneath the sod,
A sportsman's soul has gone to his God.
Behind the trench, in the open ground.
There's a little cross and a little mound;
And if at your heart-strings you feel a wrench,
Remember, he died for his blooming trench —
Yes, he died like a man for his trench.
SONG OF THE TRENCH 3
There's a rush and a dash, and they're at your
wire.
And you open the hell of a rapid fire;
The Maxims rattle, the rifles flash,
And the bombs explode with a sickening crash.
You give them lead, and you give them steel.
Till at last they waver, and turn, and reel.
You've done your job — there was never a blench
You've given them hell, and you've saved your
trench ;
By God, you've stuck to your trench !
The daylight breaks on the rain-soaked plain
(For some it will never break again),
And you thank your God, as you're "standing
to,"
You'd your bayonet clean, and your bolt worked
true.
For your comrade's rifle had jammed and stuck.
4 FROM THE FRONT
And he's lying there, with his brains in the muck.
So love your gun — as you haven't a wench —
And she'll save your life in the blooming trench —
Yes, save your life in the trench.
Capt. C. W. Blackalu
'TALLIN!"
Oh! we are a ragged, motley crew,
Each with a tale to tell
Of a life of eaise — a life of toil,
A life lived out in hell.
Whatever befall at the bugle call
We'll do our business well.
The bugle bawls a sharp "Fall In,"
The section sergeants shout;
A stampede on the markers,
And the company turns out.
And now you have us into line,
Just cast your eye within,
And read the tale of these soldiers hale
Who answered the cry "Fall In!"
5
6 FROM THE FRONT
That guy with the coat split up the back,
And his forage cap aslant,
Is a minister's son — and a son of a gun.
You should hear the bounder rant
When the rations aren't quite up to scratch,
Or his rifle jams his thumb.
He slips a cog, and a language fog
Spurts up and begins to hum.
The other, with his mustache trimmed.
And puttees that need a shave,
Is a slum child from Toronto,
But a splendid chap is Dave.
His upper lip is his idol,
Boot dubbin is its pomade;
He's tried to sup from a mustache cup —
But he knows his work with a spade.
There's another chap down on the left
Who tacks M.A. to his name;
"fall in!"
He'll talk of art or the price of wheat —
To him it's all the same.
His looks are insignificant,
In a battered pair of jeans,
No one would think that such a gink
Was a graduate of Queen's.
The sergeant of our section is
A most peculiar cuss;
He wears a serge sans chevrons, —
No need of them with us.
His rifle's carefully curried,
He's a voice like Kingdom Come ;
He was a clod who carried a hod,
But can talk a drill book dumb.
The corporal with the greasy clothes,
And an eye of ebony black
(He got it in an argument
With the thief who stole his pack) ;
8 FROM THE FRONT
His office-pallored face is now
Red dyed with honest tan;
A lawyer he that was to be
A city's coming man.
Down in the motor transport lines
You will find a goggled runt
Who drives an ammunition van
Thro' mud lakes at the front.
He always has a life-sized grouch;
He grumbles at his fare ;
His van floor ain't a feather bed —
And he's a millionaire.
That fellow in the ulster,
Which has seen most cruel use.
And a pair of squelching rubber boots
Which leak without excuse,
He used to be a Civil clerk,
Perched high upon a stool,
"fall in!"
But dropped his tome to learn to comb
An ammunition mule.
Yon bulldog face with the deep-cleft chin
Is owned by a miner old,
Who has roasted in California
And frozen in 'Klondike cold.
His thirst is a thing to conjure with;
He shoots like the bolt of Fate;
The dug-out roars with his husky snores
When he's back from patrolling late.
Oh! zve are a jolly, motley crew.
With many a tale to tell
Of a life of love, a life of hate,
A life lived out in hell.
Whatever we've been, wipe out the sin —
We'll do our business well.
Sergt. Frank S. Brown.
(Killed in action, Feb. s, iQ^S-)
THE VOLUNTEER
Sez I : My Country Calls ? Well, let it call.
I grins perlitely and declines wiv thanks.
Go, let 'em plaster every blighted wall,
'Ere's one they don't stampede into the ranks.
Them politicians with their greasy ways ;
Them empire-grabbers — fight for 'em ? No fear !
I've seen this mess a-comin' from the days
Of Algyserious and Aggydear :
I've felt me passion rise and swell,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Sez I : My Country ? Mine ? I likes their cheek.
Me mud-bespattered by the cars they drive,
Wot makes my measly thirty bob a week,
And sweats red blood to keep meself alive!
Fight for the right to slave that they may spend,
THE VOLUNTEER II
Them in their mansions, me 'ere in my slum?
No, let 'em fight wot's something to defend:
But me, I've nothin' — let the Kaiser come.
And so I cusses 'ard and well.
But . . . wot the 'ell. Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Sez I : If they would do the decent thing,
And shield the missis and the little 'uns,
Why, even I might shout "God save the King,"
And face the chances of them 'ungry guns.
But we've got three, another on the way ;
It's that wot makes me snarl and set me jor ;
The wife and nippers, wot of 'em, I say.
If I gets knocked out in this blasted war?
Gets proper busted by a shell.
But . . . wot the 'ell. Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Ay, wot the 'ell's the use of all this talk?
To-day some boys in blue was passin' me.
12 FROM THE FRONT
And some of 'em they 'ad no legs to walk,
And some of 'em they 'ad no eyes to see.
And — well, I couldn't look 'em in the face,
And so I'm goin', goin' to declare
I'm under forty-one and take me place
To face the music with the bunch out there.
A fool, you say! Maybe you're right.
I'll 'ave no peace unless I fight.
I've ceased to think; I only know
I've gotta go. Bill, gotta go.
Robert W. Service.
DAWN IN THE TRENCHES
Dawn o' day! And birds a-singing;
Sniping starts along the line;
"Stand to, all," comes quickly ringing,
"Pray the coming day is fine;
Mind the pools from last night's drizzle.
Post '43y-sentries' straight away — "
Rifles cleaned whilst rashers frizzle —
So to us comes break o' day,
Eric Thirkell Cooper.
13
THE TRUMPETER
We hear him daily, far too soon,
Announcing day begun,
Before the setting of the moon,
Or rising of the sun —
Forth from our dreams he bids us wake,
And find our boots for Britain's sake.
His plangent music drives us out
To shiver on parade;
All day it orders us about.
And has to be obeyed —
We take our breakfast, dinner, tea
At mercy of his melody.
The regiment mustered for a drill
Must note his briefest call ;
14
THE TRUMPETER 15
They halt or gallop at his will,
The master of us all —
His hps control the fearsome force
That represents five hundred horse.
And what of him, the man behind
This brazen voice of power?
Is he of superhuman kind,
Some warrior grim and dour,
Who thus maneuvers with a breath
Us, who'd obey him to the death?
He's five feet high, or rather less,
A laddie pale and slim,
Who's seen, but seldom heard, unless
His trumpet speaks for him —
He wakes us early, yet, poor elf,
Perforce must be first up himself !
Corp. W. Kersley Holmes.
A SONG OF THE AIR
This is the song of the Plane —
The creaking, shrieking plane.
The throbbing, sobbing plane,
And the moaning, groaning wires
The engine — missing again !
One cylinder never fires !
Hey ho ! for the Plane !
This is the song of the Man —
The driving, striving man,
The chosen, frozen man : —
The pilot, the man-at-the-wheel,
Whose limit is all that he can,
And beyond, if the need is real!
Hey ho ! for the Man !
I6
A SONG OF THE AIR I?
This is the song of the Gun —
The muttering, stuttering gun,
The maddening, gladdening gun : —
That chuckles with evil glee
At the last, long dive of the Hun,
With its end in eternity !
Hey ho ! for the Gun !
This is the song of the Air —
The lifting, drifting air.
The eddying, steadying air.
The wine of its limitless space : —
May it nerve us at last to dare
Even death with undaunted face !
Hey ho ! for the Air !
"Observer, R. F. C."
TWO PICTURES
Dawn . . .
And the dewy plain
Awakes to life and sound —
Where on the flying-ground
The ghostly hangars blaze with lights again.
The giant birds of prey
Creep forth to a new day,
And one by one,
As morning gilds the dome,
Leave the gray aerodrome —
— The day's begun.
Dusk . . .
And the vanish'd sun
Still streaks the evening skies:
Below, the prone Earth lies
TWO PICTURES 19
Darken'd, wherever warring Night has won.
The 'planes, returning, show
Deep black in the afterglow,
And one by one
Drop down from the higher airs,
— Down, down, the invisible stairs —
— The day is done.
"Observer, R. F. C."
THE SAILING OF THE FLEET
A signal flutters at the Flagship's fore,
And a deep pulse
Stirs in the mighty hulls
Slow wheeling seaward, where, beyond the Bar,
Half veiled in gloom,
Those messengers of doom
The lean Destroyers are.
From the thronged piers
Faintly, the sound of cheers
Tossed by the winds afar . . .
Witli gathering speed
The gray, grim shapes proceed —
The Might of England — to uphold the Law
'Gainst blackest treachery.
THE SAILING OF THE FLEET 21
And the same courage high
That fired those valiant hearts at Trafalgar,
Burning from age to age,
Our proudest heritage.
Pierces disquieting war-clouds like a star,
As, burdened with a Nation's hopes and fears,
The Battle Fleet of England sweeps to war.
Lieut. N. M. F. Corbett, R.N.
THE MEN BEHIND THE TUBE
{Torpedo-Boat Destroyer Flotilla)
The battleship, she rules the seas;
The cruiser helps her out;
The men that man her hungry guns
Are men indeed and stout;
But none of oil those sailor-men,
With steady brain and eye,
Can teach the swift destroyer's crezv
The way to hght and die!
While the man in the cruiser is sleepin',
The rain drummin' over 'is 'ead,
The little destroyers are creepin',
The mouth o' their stacks glowin' red,
Out through the night an' the darkness,
22
THE MEN BEHIND THE TUBE 23
Lashed by the spray an' the wind,
For we're out an' away at the break o' the day
A leavin' the slow 'uns be'ind!
If the man in the cruiser is dyin'.
The yell o' 'is armament done.
The crash o' the wireless acryin'
Will bring us around on the run.
We don't do the most o' the shoutin' !
We iight an' we give it 'em 'ot,
For it's God for the best at the tube-layin' test
An' 'ell for the one wot gets shot.
When the panicky searchlights are flittin'
An' the seas are aflood wi' the light,
The fear-maddened guns begin spittin'
As soon as we come into sight.
We 'erd them like sheep as we kill them,
They glow in their 'alos o' flame:
24 FROM THE FRONT
Then it's death at a blow for the man 'oo is slow
An' life for the man 'oo can aim!
We are pawns in the game — never counted —
But pawns that have learned 'ow to die.
For when ev'ry gun is dismounted
An' all o' the tubes is awry,
The boats driftin' wrecks on the combers
An' water aroar in the hold,
We stand till we drown an' the vessel goes
down —
The same as our fathers of old !
The bugles are wailin' "Good-bye !"
There's blood in the sea an' the sky,
Keep touch as you go — What's that thunder be-
low ?
The bulk-heads what's gone — an' now we must
go
THE MEN BEHIND THE TUBE 25
The same as our fathers of old —
Cap the quarter-deck ! —
The same as our fathers of old !
The battleship, she rules the seas;
The cruiser helps her out;
The men that man her hungry guns
Are men indeed and stout;
But none of all those sailor-men,
With steady brain and eye.
Can teach the swift destroyer's crew
The way to fight and die!
Howard Steele.
THE HOUNDS OF THE NIGHT
As after the rains,
On the Athi plains
The wild dog streams
In his hunting teams
And seeks the feeding buck,
So after the fight,
In the gloom of night.
The destroyer hounds
In leaping bounds
Cast round to try their luck.
As a grazing herd
At their leader's word
Will hark for the beat
Of the padding feet,
26
THE HOUNDS OF THE NIGHT 2y
That tells the pack is near,
So big ships at night
Seek the patch o' white
That will show the track
Of that hunting pack,
And how it is they steer.
There is little sound
When a hunting hound
Chokes out the breath
And delivers death
Among the startled buck.
— Tho' a gun must crash,
Torpedoes splash.
There is never a sound
Till the mark is found,
And a ship of the line is struck.
"Etienne" (Lieut. R. N.).
SIGNALS
The hot wax drips from the flares
On the scrawled pink forms that litter
The bench where he sits ; the glitter
Of stars is framed by the sandbags atop of the
dug-out stairs.
And the lagging watch hands creep;
And his cloaked mates murmur in sleep —
Forms he can wake with a kick —
And he hears, as he plays with the pressel-switch,
the strapped receiver click,
On his ear that listens, listens;
And the candle-flicker glistens
On the rounded brass of the switch-board where
the red wires cluster thick.
Wires from the earth, from the air;
Wires that whisper and chatter,
28
(
SIGNALS 29
At night, when the trench-rats patter
And nibble among the rations and scuttle back
to their lair;
Wires that are never at rest ;
For the linesmen tap them and test,
And ever they tren.ble with tone;
And he knows from a hundred signals the buz-
zing call of his own,
The breaks and the vibrant stresses, —
The F, and the G, and the Esses,
That call his hand to the answering key and his
mouth to the microphone.
For always the laid guns fret
On the words that his mouth shall utter,
When rifle and Maxim stutter
And the rockets volley to starward from the
spurting parapet;
And always his ear must hark
30 FROM THE FRONT
To the voices out of the dark;
For the whisper over the wire,
From the bombed and the battered trenches where
the wounded r.edden the mire ;
For a sign to waken the thunder
Which shatters the night in sunder
With the flash of the leaping muzzles and the
beat of battery-fire.
Gilbert Frankau.
AMMUNITION COLUMN
I am only a cog in a giant machine, a link of
an endless chain: —
And the rounds are drawn, and the rounds are
fired, and the empties return again;
Railroad, lorry, and limber, battery, column, and
park ;
To the shelf where the set fuse waits the breech,
from the quay where the shells embark.
We have watered and fed, and eaten our beef;
the long dull day drags by,
As I sit here watching our "Archibalds" strafing
an empty sky;
Puflf and flash on the far-off blue round the speck
one guesses the plane —
Smoke and spark of the gun-machine that is fed
by the endless chain.
31
32 FROM THE FRONT
I am only a cog in a giant machine, a little link
of the chain,
Waiting a word from the wagon-lines that the
guns are hungry again : —
Column-wagon to battery-wagon, and battery-
wagon to gun ;
To the loader kneeling 'twixt trail and wheel
from the shops where the steam-lathes run.
There's a lone mule braying against the line
where the mud cakes fetlock-deep;
There's a lone soul humming a hint of a song
in the barn where the drivers sleep;
And I hear the pash of the orderly's horse as
he canters him down the lane —
Another cog in the gun-machine, a link in the
self-same chain.
I am only a cog in a giant machine, but a vital
link of the chain;
AMMUNITION COLUMN 33
And the Captain has sent from the wagon-line to
fill his wagons again ;
From the wagon-limber to gunpit dump; from
loader's forearm at breech
To the working party that melts away when the
shrapnel bullets screech.
So the restless section pulls out once more in col-
umn of route from the right
At the tail of a blood-red afternoon ; so the flux
of another night
Bears back the wagons we fill at dawn to the
sleeping column again —
Cog on cog in the gun-machine, link on link in
the chain !
Gilbert Frankau.
HORSE-BATHING PARADE
A few clouds float across the grand blue sky,
The glorious sun has mounted zenith-high,
Mile upon mile of sand, flat, golden, clean.
And bright, stretch north and south, and fringed
with green,
The rough dunes fitly close the landward view.
All else is sea ; somewhere in misty blue
The distant coast seems melting into air —
Earth, sky, and ocean, all commingling there —
And one bold, lonely rock, whose guardian light
Glistens afar by day. a spire snow white.
Here, where the ceaseless blue-green rollers dash
Their symmetry to dazzling foam and flash,
We ride our horses, silken flanks ashine,
.Spattered and soaked with flying drops of brine,
34
HORSE-BATHING PARADE 35
The sunny water tosses round their knees,
Their smooth tails shimmer in the singing breeze.
White streaks of foam sway round us, to and
fro,
With shadows swaying on the sand below;
The horses snort and start to see the foam,
And hear the breaking roar of waves that come,
Or, pawing, splash the brine, and so we stand.
And hear the surf rush hissing up the sand.
Corp. W. Kersley Holmes.
"THE MERCY SHIP"
Above the distant skyline by degrees,
Snow-white and shining in the peaceful sun,
The Mercy Ship appears upon the seas
With those whose fighting for a while is done;
Yet some there be that struggle still with pain,
And agony too terrible for speech.
And some there be who'll never fight again,
Who've journeyed where no enemy can reach.
O winds be merciful, O waves be kind,
To these poor victims of a mad mankind.
No cheers to greet, no friendly flag to dip,
No crowded quay — in silence she arrives;
Such is the coming of the Mercy Ship,
With all her honored freight of human lives.
36
THE MERCY SHIp" Z7
And one by one the wounded reach the shore,
Till all have passed — then, stately and serene —
The Mercy Ship returns to bear once more
The broken martyrs of the War Machine.
O winds be merciful, O waves be kind,
To these poor victims of a mad mankind.
Eric Thirkell Cooper.
THE BATHE
Come friend and swim. We may be better then,
But here the dust blows ever in the eyes
And wrangling round are weary fevered men,
Forever mad with flies.
I cannot sleep, nor even long lie still,
And you have read your April paper twice;
Tomorrow we must stagger up the hill
To man a trench and live among the lice.
But yonder, where the Indians have their goats,
There is a rock stands sheer above the blue,
Where one may sit and count the bustling boats
And breath the cool air through;
May find it still is good to be alive,
May look across .and see the Trojan shore
38
THEBATHE 39
Twinkling and warm, may strip, and stretch, and
dive, —
And for a space forget about the war.
Then will we sit and talk of happy things,
Home and "the High" and some far fighting
friend.
And gather strength for what the morrow brings,
For that may be the end.
It may be we shall never swim again,
Never be clean and comely to the sight.
May rot untombed and stink with all the slain.
Come, then and swim. Come and be clean to-
night.
A. P. Herbert.
MARCHING SONG
Boots, belt, rifle, and pack —
All you'll need till you come back ;
All you'll doff when you lie down to sleep;
All they'll take off when they bury you deep.
Boots, belt, rifle, and pack.
Boots that went light down the Suffolk lane
Will shufile and drag ere they tread it again.
Nails that rang gay on the cobbled street
Will have pierced through the sock into some-
body's feet.
Boots, belt, rifle, and pack.
Belt — for water-bottle and sword :
One to save life; the other — oh, Lord!
40
MARCHING SONG 4^
'Fore you've finished with them, you bet,
One will be dry and the other wet.
Boots, belt, rifle, and pack.
Rifle, — the soldier's only friend —
True, if you treat her well, to the end :
Feed her with fire, and the tune she'll play
Will reach the heart of a Turkish Bey.
Boots, belt, rifle, and pack.
Pack — that holds what a man most wants :
A shirt, an overcoat, socks and pants,
A Bible, a photo of heart's desire;
But you'll throw it away when you charge — or
retire.
Boots, belt, rifle, and pack.
Leather and canvas, steel and wood,
They'll stand by you if you're good ;
42 FROM THE FRONT
Keep them oiled and keep them dry,
They'll see you home safely — by and by.
Boots, belt, rifle, and pack.
C J. N. (A.N.Z.A.C.).
MY RIFLE
Some Maxims of Sergeant J. Callary
To the humor and the good humor, of the ge-
nial sergeant I owe it that the period of my early
drilling, which might thinkably have been a time
of deadly dullness, afforded me much entertain-
ment, as well as not a little valuable instruction.
The sergeant was always at his best dilating upon
the virtues of the rifle, and the necessity for
treating it with respect.
I'm the Soldier's surest friend:
I will neither break nor bend.
Straight and sterling, tried and true ;
You keep me and I'll keep you.
43
44 FROM THE FRONT
Bolt and barrel, butt and band;
Caress me with a careful hand.
Stock and swivel, sling and sight;
Rub me down and keep me right.
Striker, trigger, cocking-piece ;
Give 'em all some elbow-grease.
Clean me clean, and oil me well ;
I'll kill your man and never tell.
Leave me dirty, oil me ill;
You're the chap I'm going to kill.
Leave me lying all awry;
You're the feller's going to die.
Daily do but pull me through;
I will do the same for you.
M Y R I F L E 45
Only use a "two by four'' —
Nothing less, and nothing more.
"Pull-through" rag will do the trick;
A shirt or sock is going to stick !
And keep your bottle full of ile —
Remember the Virgins' parabile !
Handle me with care, I beg,
I'm not so stout as old Mons Meg !
Do not pitch me on the ground —
To break me, a hammer can be found !
I'm the Soldier's surest friend:
I will neither break nor bend.
Straight and sterling, tried and true —
You keep me and I'll keep you.
Sergt. Joseph Lee.
THE HAPPY WARRIOR
(A Soliloquy)
Somewhere in the Ansae Zone
In my sandy dug-out by the sea
Of Saros beyond Samothrace,
I'm as happy as happy can be,
And I'm bent upon washing my face
Before I go into my tea;
But the water's so scarce in this land
That we do all our washing with sand —
And we always have sand in our tea.
In my fly-filled dug-out by the sea
Near Anzac, beyond Samothrace,
Both the cook and colonel agree
That you must have some semblance of grace
46
THE HAPPY WARRIOR 47
At breakfast, at dinner, and tea,
To prevent you from damning the eyes
Of the savage and pestilent flies —
For you ahvays have flies in your tea !
In my shell-swept dug-out by the sea
Of Saros, beyond Samothrace,
I'm as happy as happy can be.
The' the shrapnel comes flying apace
Over moorland and mountain and lea —
For I wish you to quite understand,
Tho' the hens have vacated the land,
Yet we always have shells with our tea !
M. R. (A.N.Z.A.C).
"FAGS"
When the cold is making ice cream of the mar-
row of your bones,
When you're shaking Hke a jelly and your feet
are dead as stones,
When your clothes and boots and blankets, and
your rifle and your kit
Are soaked from hell to breakfast, and the dug-
out where you sit
Is leaking like a basket, and upon the muddy
floor
The water lies in filthy pools, six inches deep or
more ;
Tho' life seems cold and mis'rable, and all the
world is wet,
You'll always get thro' somehow if you've got a
cigarette.
48
FAGS 49
When you're lying in a listening post, 'way out
beyond the wire,
While a blasted Hun, behind a gun, is doing
rapid fire :
When the bullets whine about your head and
sputter on the ground.
When your eyes are strained for every move,
your ears for every sound —
You'd bet your life a Hun patrol is prowling
somewhere near —
A shiver runs along your spine that's very much
like fear:
You'll stick it to the finish — but I'll make a little
bet.
You'd feel a whole lot better if you had a cig-
arette.
When Fritz is starting something and his guns
are on the bust,
50 FROM THE FRONT
When the parapet goes up in chunks and settles
down in dust,
When the roly-poly "rum- jar" comes a wabbling
thro' the air,
Till it lands upon a dugout — and the dugout isn't
there ;
When the air is full of dust and smoke and
scraps of steel and noise,
And you think you're booked for golden crowns
and other heavenly joys;
When your nerves are all atremble and your
brain is all afret,
It isn't half so hopeless if you've got a cigarette.
When you're waiting for the whistle and your
foot is on the step,
You bluff yourself it's lots of fun, and all the
time you're hep
FAGS 51
To the fact that you may stop one 'fore you've
gone a dozen feet,
And you wonder what it feels like, and your
thoughts are far from sweet;
Then you think about a little grave, with R.I. P.
on top.
And you know you've got to go across — altho'
you'd like to stop;
When your backbone's limp as water and you're
bathed in icy sweat,
Why, you'll feel a lot more cheerful if you puff
your cigarette.
Corp. Jack Turner.
THE SOLDIER MOOD
We were eating chip potatoes underneath the
April stars
That glittered coldly and aloof from earth and
earthly wars ;
We were three good pals together, and the day's
hard work was done,
So we munched our chip potatoes, half for food
and half for fun.
Half the world was war's dominion, but the mut-
ter of the strife
Had come to seem accustomed as the undertone
of life;
We were fit and hard and happy, and the future
was unknown.
The past — all put behind us ; but the present was
our own.
52
THE SOLDIER MOOD 53
We were doing our plainest duty, meant to end
what we'd begun ;
Why worry for tomorrow till today's big job
was done?
So we walked and laughed together like three
modern musketeers —
Defying indigestion and the Germans and the
years.
We were eating chip potatoes with our fingers,
like a tramp.
And the unseen owls were hooting in the trees
around the camp ;
We were happy to be hungry, glad to be alive
and strong;
So — tomorrow might be terror, but tonight could
be a song!
Corp. W. Kersley Holmes.
A WAIL FROM ORDNANCE
We're only in the Ordience,
Not troopers of the line;
We don't attack no enemy,
Nor in the papers shine.
We just wait here from morn till night,
Expectin' these 'ere shells
That makes our lives, what were so bright.
So many earthly 'ells.
We 'and out underpants and socks,
And boots and coats galore,
To them as gives and takes hard knocks
An' soon gets used to war.
We keep their clothing up to dick.
Equip and arm 'em, too ;
54
A WAIL FROM ORDNANCE 55
We rig out the returning sick
'Almost as good as new.
They blew us from our depot south
A bit along the beach,
We humped our blueys, nothing loath.
And settled out of reach.
Our store grew large and prosperous.
We laughed at Turk and Hun,
Until they trained on us one day
A blasted four-point-one.
Each morning they put in a few
To bring us from our beds,
From time to time the whole day through
They make us duck our heads.
One eye is cocked for cover.
And one ear for the whiz,
An', until the fuss is over, we
Postpone our daily biz.
56 FROM THE FRONT
Now, when the war is over,
And we return to peace,
Though we may Hve in clover,
Enjoying lives of ease —
A striking clock will wake us,
A blow-out make us run.
And cry again our old refrain:
"Gott straf that four-point-one!"
Lieut. • Kininmouth, A.O.C.
THE RATION RASHER
"There always seems to he someone cooking
bacon in the trenches." — Extract from an Of-
ficer's letter.
A peculiar stench is the smell of the trench —
Of that there is no denying;
But at every post what strikes you most
Is the smell of bacon frying.
The moldy beef of some past relief,
I grant you, is somewhat trying ;
But to counteract, you've always the fact
Of the smell of bacon frying.
At another time the chloride of lime
Will almost start you crying;
57
58 FROM THE FRONT
But banish the niff by having a sniff
At the smell of bacon frying.
The night has been wet and you see with regret
Odd garments hung out drying;
The odor is quaint, and you bless the saint
Who invented bacon frying.
It haunts you by night, and in daylight bright,
It will haunt you when you're dying;
That insidious smell that you know so well —
The smell of the bacon frying.
Capt. C. W. Blackall.
PETER'S PUDDING
There came a pudding from Peter's people,
Round as the best of puddings are,
A fragrant spheroid of fruit and fatness,
Unannounced Hke a falling star,
Errant, excellent, edible star;
Directed to him came this beautiful ball,
Yet, certes, we scented a feast for us all.
It came at noon, when we had no leisure, .
Only we sighed, "Were tea-time come !"
Oh, bear with us and our horrid hunger,
You who formally dine at home.
See a pudding per day at home;
And marvel what rarities puddings must be
Here, when one fashions a festival tea!
59
6o FROM THE FRONT
Till eve we toiled in the liveliest weather,
Out in the wind, the mud, and rain,
VV'hile hunger gathered, till day departing
Bugles called us to tea again —
Blew their j oiliest summons again,
And then how we valued the pains Peter took
To keep on the sunniest side of the cook !
The pudding came to the crowded mess-tent.
Wrapped in a wreath of pleasant steam,
Substantial, solid, as puddings should be —
Fading swift as an idle dream.
Moment's doughy, digestible dream;
And then we went forth to what Fortune might
bring,
More fit by one pudding to fight for the King !
Corp. W. Kersley Holmes.
LETTERS
(Vermelles, August, 191 5)
When stand-to hour is over we leave the para-
pet.
And scamper to our dug-out to smoke a ciga-
rette ;
The post has brought in parcels and letters for
us all,
And now we'll light a candle, a little penny can-
dle,
A tiny tallow candle, and stick it to the wall.
Dark shadows cringe and cower on roof and wall
and floor.
And little roving breezes come rustling through
the door ;
61
62 FROM THE FRONT
We open up the letters of friends across the
foam,
And thoughts go back to London, again we dream
of London —
We see the Hghts of London, of London and
of home.
We've parcels small and parcels of a quite gi-
gantic size,
We've Devon cream and butter and apples baked
in pies.
We'll make a night of feasting and all v/ill have
their fill-
See, cot-mate Bill has dainties, such dandy dinky
dainties.
She's one to choose the dainties, the maid that's
gone on Bill.
Oh, Kensington for neatness ; it packs its parcels
well,
LETTERS 63
Though Bow is always bulky it isn't quite as
swell.
But here there's no distinction 'twixt Kensing-
ton and Bow,
We're comrades in the dug-out, all equals in the
dug-out.
We're comrades in the dug-out and fight a com-
mon foe.
Here comes the ration party with tins of bully
stew —
"Clear off your ration party, we have no need of
you:
"Maconachie for breakfast? It ain't no bloomin'
use.
We're faring far, far better, our gifts from home
are better.
Look here, we've something better than bully
after Loos."
64 FROM THE FRONT
The post comes trenchwar J nightly ; we hail the
post with glee.
Though now we're not as many as once we used
to be,
For some have done their fighting, packed up
and gone away,
And many boys are sleeping, no sound will break
their sleeping,
Brave, lusty comrades sleeping in little homes of
clay.
We all have read our letters, but one's untouched
so far.
An English maiden's letter to her sweetheart at
the War,
And when we write in answer to tell her how
he fell.
What can we say to cheer her? Oh, what is
now to cheer her?
LETTERS 65
There's nothing left to cheer her except the
news to tell.
We'll write to her tomorrow and this is what
we'll say,
He breathed her name in dying; in peace he
passed away —
No words about his moaning, his anguish and his
pain.
When slowly, slowly dymg. God ' Fifteen hours
in dying !
He lay a maimed thing dying, alone upon the
plain.
We often write to mothers, to sweethearts and
to wives,
And tell how those who loved them have given
up their lives ;
If we're not always truthful, our lies are always
kind,
66 FROM THE FRONT
Our letters lie to cheer them, to solace and to
cheer them.
Oh! anything to cheer them, — the women left
behind.
Patrick MacGill.
NO MAN'S LAND
No Man's Land is an eerie sight
At early dawn in the pale gray light.
Never a house and never a hedge
In No Man's Land from edge to edge,
And never a living soul walks there
To taste the fresh of the morning air.
Only some lumps of rotting clay,
That were friends or foemen yesterday.
What are the bounds of No Man's Land?
You can see them clearly on either hand,
A mound of rag-bags gray in the sun,
Or a furrow of brown where the earthworks
run
From the Eastern hills to the Western sea,
Through field or forest o'er river and lea ;
67
68 FROM THE FRONT
No man may pass them, but aim you well
And Death rides across on the bullet or
shell.
But No Man's Land is a goblin sight
When patrols crawl over at dead o' night ;
Boche or British, Belgian or French,
You dice with death when you cross the
trench.
When the "rapid," like fire-flies in the dark,
Flits down the parapet spark by spark,
And you drop for cover to keep your head
With your face on the breast of the four
months' dead.
The man who ranges in No Man's Land
Is dogged by the shadows on either hand
When the star-shell's flare, as it bursts o'er-
head.
NO man's land 69
Scares the great gray rats that feed on the
dead,
And the bursting bomb or the bayonet-snatch
May answer the cHck of your safety-catch.
For the lone patrol, with his life in his hand,
Is hunting for blood in No Man's Land.
Capt. J. H. Knight-Adkin.
NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES
Star-shells rising all around us,
Watch the searchlights come this way,
Bullets whirring, zipping round us
From the rifles laid by day;
Pop, pop, pop, a Maxim tapping,
Just to show it's working right,
Lest its crew should be caught napping,
So they try it every night.
Out in front a hammer knocking,
Somebody is fixing "wire";
Hear the peewit sadly mocking;
Men in front now — Do not fire !
Working party just returning.
Digging finished for a while;
Stopped because a house was burning —
70
NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES 71
Through they pass in single file ;
Strain your eyes to pierce the blackness,
Whilst your feet are growing numb,
Death may come through one man's slack-
ness—
Night and death together come.
Eric Thirkell Cooper.
LINES WRITTEN IN A FIRE-TRENCH
'Tis midnight, and above the hollow trench,
Seen through a gaunt wood's battle-blasted
trunks
And the stark rafters of a shattered grange,
The quiet sky hangs huge and thick with stars.
And through the vast gloom, murdering its peace,
Guns bellow and their shells rush sv^^ishing ere
They burst in death and thunder, or they fling
Wild jangling spirals round the screaming air.
Bullets whine by, and Maxims drub like drums,
And through the heaped confusion of all sounds
One great gun drives its single vibrant "Broum,"
And scarce five score of paces from the wall
Of piled sand-bags and barb-toothed nets of wire,
(So near and yet what thousand leagues away)
72
WRITTEN IN A FIRE-TRENCH 71
The unseen foe both adds and listens to-
The selfsame discord, eyed by the same stars.
Deep darkness hides the desolated land.
Save where a sudden flare sails up and bursts
In whitest glare above the wilderness.
And for one instant lights with lurid pallor
The tense, packed faces in the black redoubt.
W. S. S. Lyon.
N. B. Written in fire-trench above "Glencorse
Wood," Westhoeck, April ii, 1915.
A QUIET NIGHT
So lie you low, and watch the rise
Where the hedge runs down to the Broken
Tree;
There stands a farrn that you cannot see,
And near the German culvert lies.
So ready ears, good men, and eyes
That waver not till starlight dies;
They gather stealthily.
Lie you, a bomb within the hand,
The rifle ready by the arm.
Touch but the wire to give alarm;
For our trench runs far in No Man's Land,
And it's lightly dug, and it's thinly manned,
And it's Death tonight, my Httle band,
If Germans take the farm.
Ronald Gurner.
74
IN NO MAN'S LAND WITH THE NIGHT
PATROL
Five men over the parapet, v^ith a one-star loot
in charge,
Stumbling along through the litter and muck and
cursing blind and large.
Hooking their gear in the clutching wire as they
wriggle through the gap,
For an hour's patrol in No Man's Land, and take
what chance may hap.
From Misery Farm to Seven Trees it's safe
enough to go.
But it's belly crawl down Dead Man's Ditch,
half choked with grimy snow.
Then back again beside the grass grown road —
Watch out! They've got it set!
75
76 FROM THE FRONT
To where B company's listening post lies shiv-
ering in the wet.
And I have failed at many a task, but this one
thing I've learned: —
It's the little things make paradise — like three
hours' doss well earned,
A fire of coke in a battered pail, and a gulp of
ration rum,
Or a gobbled meal of bully and mud, with the
guns for a moment dumb.
And horror's not from terrible things — men torn
to rags by a shell,
And the whole trench swimming in blood and
slush, like a butcher's shop in hell;
It's silence and night and the smell of the dead
that shake a man to the soul,
From Misery Farm to Dead Man's Ditch on a
"nil report" patrol.
IN NO man's land 77
Five men back to the trench again, with a one-
star loot in charge,
Stumbling over the rusty tins and cursing blind
and large.
Enter the trench log up to date by a guttering
candle's flare !
"No report" (save that hell is dark, and we have
just been there).
Capt. J. H. Knight-Adkin.
BEFORE THE CHARGE
(Loos, 1915)
The night is still and the air is keen,
Tense with menace the time crawls, by,
In front is the town and its homes are seen,
Blurred in outline against the sky.
The dead leaves float in the sighing air,
The darkness moves like a curtain drawn,
A veil which the morning sun will tear
From the face of death. We charge at dawn.
Patrick MacGill.
78
NEUVE CHAPELLE
The Morning Star is fading from our sight
Above the miry trench we know so well,
Facing a clustered group of houses white,
Neuve Chapelle.
Suddenly through the palpitating air
Descends a thunderstorm of shot and shell
Upon the village calmly sleeping there,
Neuve Chapelle
The tempest grows, like a tornado's gust
Or countless fiends let loose at once from hell ;
It maddens men, and shatters into dust
Neuve Chapelle.
Ceases awhile the cannon's deafening crash ;
Forth, at the whistle, with a jubilant yell
79
8o FROM THE FRONT
Khaki-clad warriors leap ; 'gainst thee they dash,
Neuve Chapelle.
They hurl them on the crowded trench below,
With courage that no fear of death can quell;
Their bayonets heap thy pavements with the foe,
Neuve Chapelle.
A thousand graves shall mark the fatal place
Where the English, Scottish, Teuton heroes fell ;
Hushed in their fury in thy cold embrace,
Neuve Chapelle.
Long in the memory of Britain's wives
The story of this ghastly day shall dwell ;
Long shall we mourn those young and gallant
lives,
Neuve Chapelle.
H. A. Nesbitt, M,A.
April, ipi5.
IN THE MORNING
{Loos, ipi^)
The firefly haunts were hghted yet,
As we scaled the top of the parapet;
But the East grew pale to another fire, '
As our bayonets gleamed by the foeman's
wire;
And the sky was tinged with gold and gray,
And under our feet the dead men lay,
Stiff by the loop-holed barricade ;
Food of the bomb and the hand-grenade ;
Still in the slushy pool and mud —
Ah ! the path we came was a path of blood.
When we went to Loos in the morning.
A little gray church at the foot of a hill.
With powdered glass on the window-sill.
8i
82 FROM THE FRONT
The shell-scarred stone and the broken tile,
Littered the chancel, nave and aisle —
Broken the altar and smashed the pyx,
And the rubble covered the crucifix;
This we saw when the charge was done.
And the gas-clouds paled in the rising sun.
As we entered Loos in the morning.
The dead men lay on the shell-scarred plain,
Where Death and the Autumn held their
reign —
Like banded ghosts in the heavens gray
The smoke of the powder paled away;
Where riven and rent the spinney trees
Shivered and shook in the sullen breeze,
And there, where the trench through the
graveyard wound.
The dead men's bones stuck over the ground
By the road to Loos in the morning.
IN THE MORNING 83
The turret towers that stood in the air,
Sheltered a foeman sniper there —
They found, who fell in the sniper's aim,
A field of death on the field of fame ;
And stiff in khaki the boys were laid
To the sniper's toll at the barricade.
But the quick went clattering through the
town,
Shot at the sniper and brought him down,
As we entered Loos in the morning.
The dead men lay on the cellar stair.
Toll of the bomb that found them there.
In the street men fell as a bullock drops,
Sniped from the fringe of Hulluch copse.
And the choking fumes of the deadly shell
Curtained the place where our comrades
fell.
This we saw when the charge was done,
^4 FROM THE FRONT
And the East blushed red to the rising sun
In the town of Loos in the morning.
Patrick MacGill.
CIVILIZATION
"God's in His Heaven,
All's right with the world."
— Browning.
There's a roar like a thousand hells set free.
And the riven, tortured ground
Sways like a tempest-smitten tree ;
And the earth shoots up in jets all round
And blows like spray at sea
When the wild white horses chafe and fret
Till the boulders back on the beach are wet
With the far-flung foam. But the hollow sound
Of the waves that roar on the shifting shore
Would be lost and drowned in the furious din.
When these fruits of man's great brain begin
To pound the ditch that we are in.
85
86 FROM THE FRONT
The trench is soon a hideous mess
Of yawning holes and scattered mud
And tangled wire and spHntered wood,
And some poor shapeless things you'd guess
Were once made up of nerves and blood,
But now are no more good
Than the tattered sandbags — nay, far less.
For these can still be used again.
(Heed not the dark- red stain,
For that will quickly disappear
In the sun and wind and rain.)
Above our heads — not very high,
As they fall on the German trenches near —
Our own shells hurtle wailing by,
But the noise cannot deaden the dreadful cry
Of a soul torn out of the shattered form;
(While those who are still survivors try
Like a ship — any port in a storm)
To hide in the holes the shells have made
CIVILIZATION 87
And blindly, grimly, wait
Till the storm of shot and shell abate,
And it's "Bayonets up!" and blade to blade,
We can strike for ourselves, and the brave dead
boys.
Who, hiding in holes, have met their fate
Like rats in a trap;
But we perhaps shall have better hap.
For already there is less of the awful noise,
We can hear the machine guns stuttering death
They're coming at last ! And we draw our breath
Through hard-clenched teeth, as our bullets fly
Toward the serried ranks that are drawing nigh ;
They stagger and fall, but still press on
To the goal they think they have nearly won.
And we wait and wait till they're almost here.
Then it's "Up, lads ! Up ! Let 'em have the steel !"
With a wild, hoarse yell that is half a cheer,
We are out and their torn ranks backwards reel.
88 FROM THE FRONT
Then back to the trench to bury and build,
And count our wounded and count our killed ;
But out in the front there are many who lie,
Their dead eyes turned to the quiet sky —
We have given our own lads company.
Lieut. Eric Fitzwater Wilkinson, M.C
(Killed in action, 19 17)
"ATTACK!"
You are standing watch in hand,
All waiting the command,
While your guns have got their trenches fairly
set.
When they lengthen up the range,
You feel a trifle strange
As you clamber up the sand-bag parapet.
It's a case of do or die —
Still, you rather wonder why
Your mate drops down beside you with a
screech ;
But you're very soon aware,
When a bullet parts your hair,
That HE'S not the only pebble on the beach.
89
90 FROM THE FRONT
It's each man for himself,
For your Captain's on the shelf,
And you don't know if he's wounded or he's dead.
So never count the cost.
Or your comrades who are lost.
But keep the line on forging straight ahead.
The high-explosive shell
Has blown their wire to hell,
And their trench is like a muddy, bloody drain.
They are bolting left and right.
And the few that stay to fight —
Well, not many see their Fatherland again !
But there's one cove that you've missed,
And he cops you in the wrist
As you're stooping down to help a wounded
chum.
Though you're feeling mighty faint,
"attack!" 91
And you're not a blooming saint,
You blow his blasted brains to kingdom come !
You've done your little job,
And you drop down with a sob,
For you're feeling half a man and half a wreck.
And you say a little prayer —
Which for you is rather rare —
For you got it in the arm, and not the neck.
When the evening shadows fall,
You do your best to crawl,
Till the stretcher-bearers find you in a creek.
Then you feel as right as rain.
And forget the aching pain,
For you'll see Old England's shores within a
week.
Capt. C. W. Blackall.
THE NIGHT ATTACK
Close behind a wall of sandbags, covered up with
yellow mud,
In a trench that seems perpetually wet.
Stands a line of weary figures, all begrimed with
dirt and blood.
And their tired faces grimly stern and set;
With their rifles "laid" and ready for the night
that's coming soon.
They gather round the braziers for tea.
Whilst the subaltern lies resting who's in charge
of the platoon,
Preparing for the night that is to be.
When the rifle bolts are tested, and the sentries
have been set.
When the night is only lightened by the flares,
92
THE NIGHT ATTACK 93
He leads a little party through the darkness,
black as jet,
And creeps to catch the Deutschers unawares.
With the fuse attached beforehand on the im-
provised grenade,
They slowly crawl towards the German wire,
And a few went softly cursing, and a few there
were that prayed.
Whilst they waited there for Fritz to open fire.
Then they cut the wire in places, and a bomb
was swiftly hurled,
A Maxim farther down began to pop;
And a little knot of Prussians went to find an-
other world,
As another bomb went spinning overtop;
Down the trench the rifles volleyed, though they
mostly went too high,
94 FROM THE FRONT
But here and there a figure lay and cursed,
Yet only very softly, so as not to signify,
And a second line of shadows joined the first.
Quickly star shells flew around them, bursting
brilliant as the sun,
A yelling line found where the gap was blown;
Scarlet bayonets quickly finished what a dead
man had begun;
And next day some widowed women wept alone.
Eric Thirkell Cooper.
THE VETERAN
Well, boy, you're off to war.
I'd go again myself
If I was fit. Just reach my sword
From off that dusty shelf.
Ah, thanks ! The thrill it carries !
This battered hilt to hold.
I'm mutilated, boy, but still
I'm far from being old.
Just think, a scant eight months ago
I left here strong and tall,
And with my Briton brothers
Threw in my lot, my all.
Just eight short months, but in that time
I've lived a tragic life,
95
96 FROM THE FRONT
And seen my fill of hate and flame
And death in callous strife.
Eight months ago I used to dream
Of glory's honored crown ;
Eight months, and in that hasting time
My idols tumbled down.
I dreamt the thrill of battle;
The roaring charge ; the check ;
I never thought that I'd return
A battered, useless wreck.
Oh, I was but a driftwood in
The backwash of a corps.
I've suffered and I've risked my life, —
That's what I 'nlisted for.
And were I hale and hearty
I'd do the same again,
And take my place among the ranks
Of Britain's fighting men.
THE VETERAN 97
What, youngster? Tell about my wounds?
There's nothing much to say.
The first was in the village —
We captured it that day —
I got a bullet in the breast.
Unconsciously for hours
I lay just where I tumbled
Drenched thro' with chilling showers.
To get me to the ambulance
The bearers had to creep.
A doctor tended me who looked
Half dead for want of sleep.
They'd run quite out of medicine;
Few orderlies beside,
And those of us who wanted to
Might live — the others died.
I needed life so much, I guess
I fought the angel back.
98 FROM THE FRONT
It's funny how you hate to die.
When lying on your back.
They patched me up, eventually ;
Back to the lines I went, —
Back to the freezing trench ; 'twas then
I knew what suff'ring meant.
The cutting wind nipped to the bone.
The rifle froze the hand,
And all day long the shrapnel searched
The frost-encrusted land.
To face a madly charging foe
Demands a courage bold,
But more than that is needed to
Combat insistent cold.
One day we found a French platoon;
No wound — no blood was shed;
The poison-gas had done its work;
THE VETERAN 99
The whole platoon was dead.
I remember cogitating
As among that group I stood,
"If hell is anything like war,
Thank God ! my life's been good."
But go, my boy ! Off to the front,
And let no tongue dissuade.
Go, for war's proficiency,
With rifle and with spade.
God speed you, boy ! I envy you,
As chained to a wooden peg,
I, crippled, sit with a broken life.
One hand, and half a leg.
Sergt. Frank S. Brown.
WOUNDED
Is it not strange ? A year ago today,
With scarce a thought beyond the humdrum
round,
I did my decent job and earned my pay;
Was averagely happy, I'll be bound.
Ay, in my little groove I was content.
Seeing my life run smoothly to the end.
With prosy days in stolid labor spent,
And jolly nights, a pipe, a glass, a friend.
In God's good time a hearth fire's cozy gleam,
A wife and kids, and all a fellow needs;
When presto! like a bubble goes my dream:
I leap upon the stage of Splendid Deeds.
I yell with rage; I wallow deep in gore:
I, that was clerk in a drysalter's store.
ICO
WOUNDED lOI
Stranger than any book I've ever read.
Here on the reeking battlefield I He,
Under the stars, propped up with smeary dead
Like too if no one takes me in, to die.
Hit on the arms, legs, liver, lungs and gall ;
Damn glad there's nothing more of me to hit ;
But calm, and never feeling pain at all,
And full of wonder at the turn of it.
For of the dead around me three are mine.
Three foemen vanquished in the whirl of fight;
So if I die I have no right to whine,
I feel I've done my little bit all right.
I don't know how — but there the beggars are,
As dead as herrings pickled in a jar.
And here am I, worse wounded than I thought ;
For in the fight a bullet bee-liks stings ;
You never heed ; the air is metal-hot.
And all alive with little flicking wings.
102 FROM THE FRONT
But on you charge. You see the fellows fall;
Your pal was by your side, fair fighting-mad ;
You turn to him, and lo ! no pal at all ;
You wonder vaguely if he's copped it bad.
But on you charge. The heavens vomit death;
And vicious death is besoming the ground.
You're blind with sweat; you're dazed, and out
of breath,
And though you yell, you cannot hear a sound.
But on you charge. Oh, War's a rousing game !
Around you smoky clouds like ogres tower;
The earth is roweled deep with spurs of flame,
And on your helmet stones and ashes shower.
But on you charge. It's odd ! You have no fear.
Machine-gun bullets whip and lash your path ;
Red, yellow, black and smoky giants rear;
The shrapnel rips, the heavens roar in wrath.
But on you charge. Barbed wire all trampled
down.
WOUNDED 103
The ground all gored and rent as by a blast ;
Grim heaps of gray where once were heaps of
brown ;
A ragged ditch — the Hun first line at last.
All smashed to hell. Their second right ahead,
So on you charge. There's nothing else to do.
More reeking holes, blood, barbed wire, grue-
some dead ;
(Your puttee strap's undone — that worries you),
You glare around. You think you're all alone.
But no ; your chums come surging left and right.
The nearest chap flops down without a groan.
His face still snarling with the rage of fight.
Ha ! here's the second trench — just like the first,
Only a little more so, more "laid out";
More pounded, flame-corroded, death-accurst;
A pretty piece of work, beyond a doubt.
Now for the third, and there your job is done.
So on you charge. You never stop to think.
104 FROM THE FRONT
Your cursed puttee's trailing as you run;
You feel you'd sell your soul to have a drink.
The acrid air is full of cracking whips.
You wonder how it is you're going still.
You foam with rage. Oh, God ! to be at grips
With someone you can rush and crush and kill.
Your sleeve is dripping blood ; you're seeing red ;
You're battle-mad ; your turn is coming now.
See! there's the jagged barbed wire straight
ahead,
And there's the trench — you'll get there anyhow.
Your puttee catches on a strand of wire,
And down you go ; perhaps it saves your life,
For over sandbag rims you see 'em fire,
Crop-headed chaps, their eyes ablaze with strife.
You crawl, you cower; then once again you
plunge
With all your comrades roaring at your heels.
"Have at 'em, lads." You stab, you jab, you
lunge ;
WOUNDED 105
A blaze of glory, then the red world reels.
A crash of triumph, then . . . you're faint a
bit . . .
That cursed puttee ! Now to fasten it . . .
Well, that's the charge. And now I'm here alone.
Fve built a little wall of Hun on Hun,
To shield me from the leaden bees that drone
(It saves me worry, and it hurts 'em none).
The only thing I'm wondering is when
Some stretcher-men will stroll along my way?
It isn't much that's left of me, but then
Where life is, hope is, so at least they say.
Well, if I'm spared I'll be the happy lad.
I tell you I won't envy any king.
I've stood the racket, and I'm proud and glad;
I've had my crowning hour. Oh, War's the
thing !
It gives us common working chaps our chance,
A taste of glory, chivalry, romance.
I06 FROM THE FRONT
Ay, War, they say, is hell; it's heaven, too,
It lets a man discover what he's worth.
It takes his measure, shows what he can do,
Gives him a joy like nothing else on earth.
It fans in him a flame that otherwise
Would flicker out, these drab, discordant days;
It teaches him in pain and sacrifice
Faith, fortitude, grim courage past all praise.
Yes, War is good. So here beside my slain,
A happy wreck I wait amid the din;
For even if I perish, mine's the gain. . . .
Hi, there, you fellows! Won't you take me in?
Give me a fag to smoke upon the way. . . .
We've taken La Boiselle ! The hell, you say !
Well, that would make a corpse sit up and
grin. . . .
Lead on ! I'll live to fight another day.
Robert W. Service.
GLORY
We had a little set-back
In the tricky shadow light
Between the day and the darkness
There had been a stubborn fight.
When the last rays of the sun
Picked out in deep-cut silhouette
A stranded Maxim gun.
Our Captain spotted it and turned:
His voice rang like a bell
Amid the hurricane of sound —
"Five volunteers for hell!"
The nearest five howled, "Here, sir!"
Above the awful din,
Then slipped out in the twilight
To bring that Maxim in,
107
I08 FROM THE FRONT
So, while we hustled cartridge clips,
Or pumped our magazines,
We snatched the time to follow
Those five fire-eating fiends.
The first just turned and crumpled up-
His ghastly features set —
A German had him spotted when
He climbed the parapet.
The second kept on crawling, till
He met some flying lead
That ripped away his cap and left
A deep gash in his head;
The third was going lucky, till
He topped the little rise,
Then turned to us and wilted —
On his face a fixed surprise.
The others, scouting trouble, took
The open on the run;
GLORY 109
Unscathed they crossed the death zone,
And reached the precious gun;
Then, taking it between them, turned
Back to our hiding place :
They'd covered half the distance, when
The fourth pitched on his face.
When the last man reached the trenches
He contained a pound of lead ;
He got the most when he paused and stooped
To see if the fourth was dead.
Now this lad got a medal
To pin upon his breast.
And a whacking lot of glory, too ;
But what about the rest?
One of the men came crawling back —
He was the first to fall —
But the surgreon could not save him:
110 FROM THE FRONT
He died in the hospital.
It was hours before the stretchers
Could leave the trench to tend
The wounded. In the meantime
The third had met his end.
The second man recovered,
But the price he paid was high —
Stone blind, a bullet in the lung.
One leg bobbed at the thigh.
And this was the price of glory.
This the just reward:
How many of these were heroes,
Think you, in the sight of the Lord?
Just one got the cross for valor,
And one the sufferer's cross;
Three lives went out in the twilight.
Yet none account their loss.
For every deed rewarded —
GLORY III
For every laurel crown —
Unknown, unsung, forgotten
A hundred lives go down.
Then in the final reck'ning
Share with the ones unknown
The glory; give not the living
The bread — to the dead a stone.
But honor the sacred mem'ry
Of those who for honor tried —
Men of stupendous valor,
Unknown because they died.
Sergt. Frank S. Brown.
HOLDING THE BRIDGE
Night after night, day after day,
We fought and backed an3 fought away;
Until, after a hundred knocks,
They thought they had us on the rocks.
Behind our force, a river ran —
A single bridge its water span —
If they could gain that bridge's head
We'd all be prisoners or dead.
I never was in tighter place.
Or ever ran a closer race.
We both ceased fire, and made a burst;
But thank the Lord ! we got there first.
And though our ranks with lead they pound,
Yet like grim death we held our ground.
And making little of our loss
HOLDING THE BRIDGE H^
Until the last man got across.
And there, two hundred yards away,
Nine sapper-men in ambush lay.
We knew it was their biz to blow
The bloomin' bridge to Jericho,
But saw that there was summat wrong.
Because the job, it took too long:
Either the fuse had failed to fire,
Or else a shot had cut the wire.
There was but one thing to be done —
Back to the blasted bridge to run.
They tried it, too, those Sappers nine.
For they were bound to fire that mine.
The Captain first with cigarette
Between his lips, his teeth firm set,
Strolled quietly across the ridge
Towards the buttress of the bridge,
114 FROM THE FRONT
And then turned back again, and talked
To his own men, then on he walked
As cool as if he was on parade.
My God ! he drew a fusillade,
Yet on he went. We gave a cheer
To see a man so free from fear;
But we the words had hardly spoke,
When right in's face a shell it broke :
'Twas one of Krupps' brand-new machines,
And blew him into smithereens.
Then the Lieutenant, all on fire
To win his spurs, and fix that wire.
Walked out ; you'd think it was a race.
He went at such a clinking pace,
Fair toe and heel. They hold their fire
Till he is close beside the wire.
And then the fatal word they give.
And riddle him just like a sieve.
HOLDING THE BRIDGE "5
He hadn't time a prayer to say;
I wonder if it mattered — eh?
And next the Sergeant had his try
He didn't seem the least bit shy,
He didn't dodge, he didn't duck.
But marched straight on till he was struck.
He didn't lie down like a lamb.
But died, God bless him ! shouting "Damn !"
Then one with two stripes, two with one,
Then three without like red shanks run.
But one and all of them were copped,
And down upon the race-course dropped;
And we were done, as nigh's could be,
For that left only one, you see.
And he was cute as a pet fox,
He didn't step out of his box.
Il6 FROM THE FRONT
But squatted till the Klucking Hen,
Thinking all safe, sent on his men ;
Then stripped his body to his pelt,
And drawing tighter in his belt,
And pulling himself close together.
He raced all out, just hell for leather,
Straight for the bridge. Oh! it was prime!
Clocking the course in even time.
The German bullets round him spin
As thick as hail, they shaved his chin.
They drew a tooth, they singed his hair,
They cut his nails, Gawdstrewth, I swear.
No sharpshooter could draw a bead
On one with such a turn of speed :
For all our lives it was a race
Across that open gun-swept space,
Both armies breathless looking on.
But bless his heart ! our Sapper won.
HOLDING THE BRIDGE 1 1?
He was a daisy — that's no flattery :
He waited till a German battery
Was on the bridge ; and then he pressed
The button of his bomb. I'm blessed!
But with a fizz, a bang, a flare,
Up went the bridge into the air,
With gun and horse and Bombardier.
From out our ranks a mighty cheer.
That almost drowned the guns, arose:
To hear the row you might suppose
It was a match ; and we had kicked
The winning goal, and Albion licked.
Arnold F. Graves.
NEXT MORNING
Today the sun shines bright,
There is a delicate freshness in the air,
Which, like a nimble sprite,
Doth play upon my cheek and lift my hair.
And, as I look about me, lo !
I see a world I do not know!
As though some soft celestial beam,
Some clean and wholesome grace.
Had purged half the horror of the place
To a strange beauty. Was it, then, a dream,
That ghostly march but yesternight,
Beneath the moon's uncertain light,
When chill at heart we picked our ivay
Through dreadful, silent things, that lay
Il8
NEXT MORNING M9
About our path on either hand?
Was it a dream ? Is this the self-same land,
The land we pass'd through then?
How strange it seems ! — Yet 'tis the same !
I see from here the path by which we came,
The tumbled soil, the shatter 'd trees are there :
And there, in desolation sleeping.
Almost too pitiful for weeping,
The little village — once the home of men !
Aye, the whole scene is there,
As desperate in its abandonment.
As melancholy-wild and savage-bare
As then : — but somehow in this warm, bright air
It all seems different!
The same, and yet I know it not !
II
Thus much I see — But there's a spot
Thafs hidden from mine eyes.
Behind the ruin'd church it lies.
120 FROM THE FRONT
Where gaping vaults, beneath the nave,
Have made a dreadful kind of cave;
And there before the cavern's mouth
A dark and stagnant pool is spread.
So silent and so still!
I saw it last i' the pale moonlight;
And I could think that shapes uncouth
Crept from that cave at dead of night
With ghoulish stealth, to feast their till
Upon the pale and huddled dead!
Yet now,
Happy, beneath this warm sunlight,
Even that fearsome pool is bright
Under the cavern's brow !
So outward-fair, that few might guess
The secret of its loathsomeness,
Nor know what nameless things are done
There, with the setting of the sun !
Lieut. E. A. Wodehouse.
AT DAWN IN FRANCE
Night on the plains, and the stars unfold
The cycle of night in splendor old ;
The winds are hushed, on the fire-swept hill
All is silent, shadowy, still —
Silent, yet tense as a harp high-strung
By a master hand for deeds unsung.
Slowly across the shadowy night
Tremble the shimmering wings of light,
And men with vigil in their eyes
And a fever light that never dies —
Men from the city, hamlet, town,
Once white faces tanned to brown, —
Stand to the watch of the parapet
And watch, with rifles, bayonets set,
For the great unknown that comes to men
Swift as the light: sudden, then —
122 FROM THE FRONT
Dawn ! the light from its shimmering wings
Lights up their faces with strange, strange
things :
Strange thoughts of love, of death and life,
Serenity 'mid sanguine strife, —
Dreams of life where the feet of youth
Rush to the pinnacles of Truth ;
Where early dreams with pinions fleet
Rush to find a love complete ;
Of Love and Youth 'neath rosy bowers
Sensuous, mad, with the wine-filled hours,
Flushed with hope and joy's delight.
Weaving rapture from the night: —
Visions of death where the harp is still
And the sun sets swiftly behind youth's hill;
Where the song is hushed and the light is dead
And the man lies with the remembered;
Where Memory weaves a paradise,
A mother's face, her tender eyes,
Her suffering for the child she gave.
AT DAWN IN FRANCE I23
Her love unbroken by the grave;
Where shadows gather o'er the bliss,
The rapture of a bridal kiss : —
Yet dreams where Youth (sublimity!)
Doth thrill to give for Liberty
Its love, its hope, its radiant morn.
Doth thrill to die for the yet unborn,
To die and pay the utmost price
And save its ideals thro' the sacrifice.
Thus at dawn do the watchers dream;
Of life and death, of love supreme :
Flushed with the dawn, hope in each breast
Their faces turn to the starless west:
Thus at dawn do the watchers think
Resolute-hearted upon death's brink
With a strange, proud look on every face
The SCORN of Death, the PRIDE of race.
Sergt. J. W. Streets.
(Killed in action, July i, 19 16)
LINES WRITTEN SOMEWHERE IN THE
NORTH SEA
The laggard hours drift slowly by ; while silver
mist-wreaths veil the sky
And iron coast whereon, flung high, the North
Sea breaks in foam.
When flame the pallid Northern Lights on seem-
ing age-long Winter nights,
Then oftentimes for our delight God sends a
dream of Home.
And once again we know the peace of little red-
roofed villages
That nestle close in some deep crease amid the
rolling wealds
That Northward, Eastward, Southward sweep,
fragrant with thyme and flecked with sheep,
124
IN THE NORTH SEA 125
To where the corn is standing deep above the
ripening fields.
And once again in that fair dream I see the
sibilant swift stream —
Now gloomy — green and now agleam — that flows
by Furnace Mill,
And hear the plover's plaintive cry above the
common at Holtye,
When redly glows the dusky sky and all the
woods are still.
Oh, I remember as of old, the copse aflame with
russet gold,
The sweet half-rotten scent of mold, the while
I stand and hark
To unseen woodland life that stirs before the
clamant gamekeepers,
Till, sudden, out a pheasant whirrs to cries of
"Mark cock, mark!"
126 FROM THE FRONT
And there are aged inns that sell the mellow,
cool October ale,
What time one tells an oft-told tale around the
friendly fires,
Until the clock with muffled chime asserts that
it is closing time,
And o'er the fields now white with rime the
company retires.
How long ago and far it seems, this peaceful
country of our dreams,
Of fruitful fields and purling streams — the Eng-
land that we know :
Who holds within her sea-girt ring all that we
love, and love can bring;
Ah, Life were but a little thing to give to keep
her so!
Lieut. N. M. F. Corbett, R. N.
BALLADE OF A CATHEDRAL CLOSE
Before me on the crown
Of yonder hilltop high
The stark howitzers frown
Remorseless cruelty.
A sullen shell screams by
I heed not how it goes,
Seeing in memory
The old Cathedral close.
The elm leaves flutter down
And round the wet lawns fly
In tawny eddies blown
Which mar their greenery.
A pearly-tinted sky
The naked boughs disclose,
127
128 FROM THE FRONT
And bare to every eye
The old Cathedral close.
The clamors of the town
Come faint as dark winds sigh.
Nor can avail to drown
Its sweet tranquillity.
Each mellowing century
Has sweetened its repose;
No strife has e'er come nigh
The old Cathedral close.
Envoie
So I must still defy
The menace of our foes,
And save, if I should die,
The old Cathedral close.
Lieut, C. A. Macartney.
WHEN I COME HOME
When I come home, dear folk o' mine,
We'll drink a cup of olden wine;
And yet, however rich it be,
No wine will taste so good to me
As English air. How I shall thrill
To drink it on Hampstead Hill
W^hen I come home !
When I come home, and leave behind
Dark things I would not call to mind,
I'll taste good ale and home-made bread,
And see white sheets and pillows spread.
And there is one who'll softly creep
To kiss me, ere I fall asleep,
129
130 FROM THE FRONT
And tuck me 'neath the counterpane.
And I shall be a boy again
When I come home!
When I come home, from dark to light,
And tread the roadways long and white,
And tramp the lanes I tramped of yore.
And see the village greens once more,
The tranquil farms, the meadows free.
The friendly trees that nod to me,
And hear the lark beneath the sun,
'Twill be good pay for what I've done,
When I come home!
Leslie Coulson.
(Killed in action, Oct. y, 1916)
A LARK ABOVE THE TRENCHES
Hushed is the shriek of hurtling shells : and hark !
Somewhere within that bit of deep blue sky,
Grand in his loneliness, his ecstasy.
His lyric wild and free, carols a lark.
I in the trench, he lost in heaven afar;
I dream of love, its ecstasy he sings;
Both lure my soul to love till, like a star.
It flashes into life: O tireless wings
That beat love's message into melody —
A song that touches in the place remote
Gladness supreme in its undying note.
And stirs to life the soul of memory —
'Tis strange that while you're beating into life
Men here below are plunged in sanguine strife.
Sergt. John William Streets.
131
FOUR RYE SHEAVES
Four rye sheaves to be my bed;
"Now God me save," was the prayer I said;
And sweet was the sleep that came to me,
For I was home where I fain would be;
And sweet was the dream that sleep did yield,
A flowering bank and a daisied field;
A lovers' lane, and a winsome maid —
But I never heard the word she said ;
I never heard what word she spoke,
For the bugle was blown and I awoke.
132
FOUR RYE SHEAVES 133
Four rye sheaves to be my bed —
But where this night may I lay my head?
Four rye sheaves to be my bed —
Will she come w^ith that word if I am dead?
Sergt. Joseph Lee.
BROWN EYES
Song
Oh, two brown eyes where love-lit shadows swim
Like pools asleep and lulled by evening's hymn.
How can such two brown lustrous eyes
Disturb my dreams with dreams of warmer
skies,
Of singing birds and scented flowers of spring,
And sounds of Austral's bushlands whispering?
Ah, I forget the miles of heaving sea
That distance flings 'twixt love and me
And two brown eyes.
Frank E. Westbrook.
134
HILL 60
As some far swimmer, turning, views once more
England's white cliffs, and strongly cleaves
t'ward shore,
But, tide-encumbered, faints ; so far and dear
Thy crystal arms and pillared throat appear,
Love, to thy soldier who makes earth his bed
In this gray catacomb of unnamed dead.
Thy voice, o'er tossing seas of eves and dawns,
Comes like dim music heard on magic lawns;
And, when in prayer thou kneelest, this grim
brow
Feels the cool benison of hands which thou
Wouldst often grant. Now know I 'twas not
vain
Our love, whose memory softens present pain.
C. J. N. (A.N.Z.A.C.)
135
ENVOY
Only if I am remembered,
Only remembered of you,
I shall not fret if the rest forget
The vows they vowed when their spirits met.
With mine in a bondage new:
Dead be the fire of their first desire,
All their roses be rue, —
Only if I am remembered.
Only remembered of you.
Only if I am remembered.
Only remembered of you,
I shall be strong, tho' the years be long,
Tho' the road be red with the wounds of wrong.
And the sky bare neve» its blue :
136
ENVOY 137
Spring of delight in the blast and blight,
Love shall be treasured as true, —
Only if I am remembered,
Only remembered of you.
Capt. V. E. Stewart, M.C
TO SISTER E. W.
You gave me a white carnation :
Was it in sympathy?
And did you know the flower meant
Youth's glad world to me?
A simple white carnation,
Yet you seemed to understand
What I craved was a woman's smile,
The touch of a gentle hand.
So you gave me a white carnation—'
'Twas a foolish thing to do,
For whenever I see carnations now
I shall always think of you.
H. Smalley Sarson.
138
THE BOYS OUT THERE
I meet with the boys and the gay toasts pass,
The sparkling wine and the cheerful glass,
The long gray nights and the blazing log,
The clinging folds of the misty fog.
The comforts of homeland everywhere —
I think of the boys who are still out there.
Out there knee-deep in the slush and mud,
Splashed and mingled with comrades* blood,
Bearing the burden of those who lag
And fear to follow the dear old flag.
Sunset's gray with the tint of care,
For millions are thinking of those out there.
On earth goodwill and peace to men.
It sounds like a hollow mockery when
139
I40 FROM THE FRONT
I mark the horrors my eyes have seen
(They can never know who have never been),
War stripped of its glittering glamour bare —
They see it naked, the boys out there.
They are fighting a sordid war, where trench
And traverse is full of a noisome stench;
There's little of berserk warrior lust,
It's wait and suffer while bayonets rust.
It's easy to dream ip an easy-chair,
But I dream and I pray for the boys out there.
Out there, wherever "out there" may be.
From Belgium's ruins to farthest sea.
Wherever the Union Jack still flies.
Flaunting its pride to the shot-torn skies.
For them our tenderest loving care —
God prosper the boys who are still out there.
Frank E. Westbrook.
Epsom, Xmas, ipi^.
THE CHOICE
I'd rather dean a bayonet from the scarlet stain
upon it,
And feel that I was helping as I should,
Than be widely celebrated as the author of a
sonnet,
Supposing for an instant that I could.
Might I choose between the making of a sorely-
needed shell.
And painting some great masterpiece of art,
I'd rather work at Woolwich — and I'd try to do
it well.
That seems to be by far the finer part.
For the time has come for doing, and it's better
nowadays
To die unknown, unhonored, undismayed,
141
142 FROM THE FRONT
Than to live in selfish comfort ; just a man who
hip-hurrays.
The reckoning that other men have paid.
Eric Thirkell Cooper.
TOMMY AND FRITZ
He hides behind his sand-bag,
And I stand back o' mine ;
And sometimes he bellows, "Hullo, John Bull !"
And I hollers, "German swine!"
And sometimes we both lose our bloomin" rag,
And blaze all along the line.
Sometimes he whistles his 'Ymn of 'Ate,
Or opens his mug to sing.
And when he gives us "Die Wacht am Rhein"
I give 'im "God Save the King" ;
And then — we "get up the wind" again,
And the bullets begin to ping —
(If we're in luck our machine gun nips
A working squad on the wing.)
143
144 FROM THE FRONT
Sometimes he shouts, "Tommy, come over!"
And we fellers bawl out, "Fritz,
If yer wants a good warm breakfast.
Walk up and we'll give you fits !"
And sometimes our great guns begin to growl,
And blows his front line to bits.
And when our shrapnel has tore his wire,
And his parapet shows a rent,
We over and pays him a friendly call
With a bayonet — but no harm meant.
And he — well, when he's resuscitate,
He returns us the compliment!
I stand behind my sand-bag,
And he hides back o' his'en ;
And, but for our bloomin' uniforms,
We might both be convicts in pris'n ;
And sometimes I loves him a little bit —
And sometimes I 'ate like p'ison.
TOMMY AND FRITZ 145
For sometimes I mutters "Belgium,"
Or " Lusitani-a,"
And I slackens my bay'net in its sheath,
And stiffens my lower jaw,
And "An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth,"
Is all I know of the Law.
But sometimes when things is quiet,
And the old kindly stars come out,
I stand up behind my sand-bag.
And think, "What's it all about?"
And — tho' I'm a damned sight better nor him,
Yet sometimes I have a doubt,
That if you got under his hide you would see
A bloke with a heart just the same's you and me !
Sergt. Joseph Lee.
REFLECTIONS ON THE EVACUATION
Once more sits Mahomet by Helles' marges
And smokes with ease among- his cypress-trees,
Nor snipes from scrubberies at British targes
Nor views them wallowing in sacred seas,
But cleans his side arms and is pleased to prattle
Of that great morning when he woke and heard
That in his slumbers he had fought a battle,
A bloody battle, and a little bird
Piped (in the German) at his side, and said,
*The something infidels have been and fled."
Cautious he crept from out his mountain-ditches,
Down the long gully, past the Water Towers ;
By Backhouse Point he nosed among the niches,
But they were hushed, and innocent of Giaours ;
146
REFLECTIONS 147
Still fearful found the earthly homes we haunted,
Those thirsty stretches where the rest-camps
were,
Then the sea slunk on, a trifle daunted
By wreathed wires and every sort of snare,
And came at last, incredulous, to find
The very beach all blasphemously mined.
Now on each hand he eyes our impious labels.
Bond Street and Regent Street, those weary
ways ;
Here stands the Pink Farm, with the broken
gables.
Here Oxford Circus marks a winding maze;
But most, I ween, in scarred grave-ridden re-
gions,
O'er many a battle-scene he loves to brood.
How Allah here was gracious to his legions,
How here, again, he was not quite so good,
14^ FROM THE FRONT
Here by the Brown House, when the bombs be-
gan,
And they — I whisper it — ^they turned and ran.
And we shall no more see the great ships gather,
Nor hear their thunderings on days of state,
Nor toil from trenches in an honest lather
To magic swimmings in a perfect Strait;
Nor sip Greek wine and see the slow sun drop-
ping
On gorgeous evenings over Imbrose Isle,
While up the hill the Maxim will keep popping,
And the men sing, and camp-fires wink awhile
And in the scrub the glow-worms glow like stars,
But (hopeless creatures) will not light cigars;
Nor daylong linger in our delv'd lodges.
And fight for food with fifty thousand flies,
Too sick and sore to be afraid of "proj's,"
Too dazed with dust to see the turquoise skies;
REFLECTIONS 149
Nor walk at even by the busy beaches,
Or quiet cliff-paths where the Indians pray,
And see the sweepers in the sky-blue reaches
Of Troy's own water, where the Greek ships lay,
And touch the boat-hulks, where they float for-
lorn,
The wounded boats of that first April morn;
Nor wake unhappily to see the sun come
And stand to arms in some Cimmerian grot —
But I, in town, well rid of all that bunkum,
I like to think that Mahomet is not ;
He must sit on, now sweltering, now frozen.
By draughty cliff and many a mountain holt.
And, when rude fears afflict the propl"^^ chosen,
Gird on his arms and madly work his bolt,
While from the heights the awful whisp^s run,
"Herbert the bard is landing with his gun."
A. P. Herbert,
ON A TROOPSHIP, 19 15
Farewell ! the village leaning to the hill,
And all the cawing rooks that homeward fly ;
The bees; the drowsy anthem of the mill;
And winding pollards, where the plover cry.
We watch the breakers crashing on the bow
And those far flashes in the Eastern haze ;
The fields and friends, that were, are fainter
now
Than whispering of ancient water-ways.
Now England stirs, as stirs a dreamer wound
In immemorial slumber : lids apart,
Soon will she rouse her giant limbs attuned
To that old music hidden at her heart.
Farewell ! the little men ! Their menial cries
Are distant as the sparrows' chatterings;
150
ON A TROOPSHIP, 1915 151
She rises in her circuit of the skies,
An eagle with the dawn upon her wings.
We come to harbor in the breath of wars;
Welcome again the land of our farewells !
In this strange ruin open to the stars
We find the haven, where her spirit dwells :
Where the near guns boom; and the stricken
towns are rolled
Sk3Award, a-thunder with their trail of gold.
H. A.
I9I5
Year of high hope and disappointment deep,
Gigantic efforts both by land and sea,
Neuve Chapelle, Loos, and grim GalHpoli,
Whose tales of valor make the spirit leap
With glowing exultation, and then weep
To think how those brave boys with eager glee
Defying death, to keep our Britain free,
Rushed on their fate, and now in silence sleep.
The opening year saw stretched between the foes
A barrier of trenches long and wide;
That barrier stands as firmly at its close
Despite the thousands who have fought and died.
Away, thou year of frightfulness and hate,
The Lusitania's doom, sad Serbia's fate.
H. A. Nesbitt, M.A.
December 31, 1915.
152
EASTER AT YPRES: 1915
The sacred Head was bound and diapered,
The sacred Body wrapped in charnel shroud,
And hearts were breaking, hopes that towered
were bowed.
And life died quite when died the living Word.
So lies this ruined city. She hath heard
The rush of foes brutal and strong and proud,
And felt their bolted fury. She is plowed
With fire and steel, and all her grace is blurred.
But with the third sun rose the Light indeed,
Calm and victorious though with brows yet
marred
By Hell's red flame so lately visited.
Nor less for thee, sweet city, better starred
153
154 FROM THE FRONT
Than this grim hour portends, new times suc-
ceed ;
And thou shalt reawake, though aye be scarred.
W. S. S. Lyon.
A^. B. Written in a "dug-out" called "Mon
Privilege" in "Glencorse Wood" by Westhoek
near Ypres, April p-io, Easter Week, 1915.
THE CATHEDRAL
Hope and mirth are gone. Beauty is departed.
Heaven's hid in smoke, Jf there's Heaven still.
Silent the city, friendless, broken-hearted,
Crying in quiet as a widow will.
Oh, for the sound here of a good man's laughter,
Of one blind beggar singing in the street,
Where there's no sound, excepting a blazing
rafter
Falls, or the patter of a starved dog's feet.
I have seen Death, and comrades' crumbled faces,
Yea, I have closed dear eyes with half a smile;
But horror's in this havoc of old places
Where driven men once rested from their hurry,
155
156 FROM THE FRONT
And girls were happy for a little while
Forgiving, praying, singing, feeling sorry.
Capt. William G. Shakespeare.
GLIMPSE
I saw you fooling often in the tents
With fair disheveled hair and laughing lips.
And frolic elf lights in your careless eyes,
As one who had never known the taste of
tears
Or the world's sorrow. Then on march one
night,
Halted beneath the stars I heard the sound
Of talk and laughter, and glanced back to
see
If you were there. But you stood far apart
And silent, bowed upon your rifle butt,
And gazed into the night as one who sees.
157
158 FROM THE FRONT
I marked the drooping lips and fathomless
eyes
And knew you brooded on immortal things.
Lieut. William Noel Hodgson.
(Killed in Action)
O. T. C. Camp, June, IP14.
THE SOLDIER
If I should die, think this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed ;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made
aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to
roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by Eng-
land given ;
159
l6o FROM THE F R O x>y T
Her sights and sounds ; dreams happy as her
day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentle-
ness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Rupert Brooke.
{Died April 2^, 1915)
OUR FATHERS
Wandering spirits, seeking lands unknown,
Such were our fathers, stout hearts unafraid.
Have we been faithless, leaving homes they made,
With their life's blood cementing every stone?
Nay, when the beast-like War God did intone
His horrid chant, was our first reckoning paid
For years of ease. Their restless spirits bade
Us fight with those whose Homeland was their
own.
Rest easy in your graves, the spirit lives
That brought you forth to claim of earth the best.
Ours it is now, and ours it shall remain ;
Mere jealous greed no honest birthright gives.
i6i
l62 FROM THE FRONT
Shades of our fathers, hear our faith confessed,
We shall defend your Empire or be slain.
Capt, James Sprent.
BEFORE ACTION
By all the glories of the day
And the cool evening's benison,
By that last sunset touch that lay
Upon the hills when day was done,
By beauty lavishly outpoured
And blessings carelessly received,
By all the days that I have lived
Make me a soldier, Lord.
By all of all man's hopes and fears.
And all the wonders poets sing,
The laughter of unclouded years.
And every sad and lovely thing;
By the romantic ages stored
With high endeavor that was his,
163
164 FROM THE FRONT
By all his mad catastrophes
Make me a man, O Lord.
I, that on my famiHar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of Thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good-by to all of this ; —
By all delights that I shall miss.
Help me to die, O Lord.
Lieut. William Noel Hodgson.
June 2p, ipi6.
AT SEA
Written on board a transport in the
Mediterrafiean.
The darkling night, crowning the aery vault
Of many-starred Heaven, and the deep,
Foam-fleck'd and ever-changing mass of sea ;
The vessel gliding on, forbidding sleep.
This awesome scene, touching the inmost chord
The human heart possesses, ope's the door
Of soul, and bids it wake and think of peace,
Putting aside the baneful curse of war.
O, God of Hosts ! Giver of all that's good.
List to my prayer and let me make amends
For past forgetfulness, and to me grant
Sure, safe return for all my own, my friends.
165
l66 FROM THE FRONT
Grant I may think less of my life, myself —
O ! give me grace that I my course may run,
Doing my work, commending all I have —
My life, my all to Thee. Thy will be done!
D. O. L.
A CONFESSION OF FAITH
Who would remember me were I to die,
Remember with a pang and yet no pain;
Remember as a friend, and feel good-by
Said at each memory as it wakes again ?
I would not that a single heart should ache —
That some dear heart will ache is my one grief.
Friends, if I have them, I would fondly take
With me that best of gifts, a friend's belief.
I have believed, and for my faith reaped tares ;
Believed again, and, losing, was content ;
A heart perchance touched blindly, unawares,
Rewards with friendship faith thus freely spent.
167
l68 FROM THE FRONT
Bury the body — it has served its ends ;
Mark not the spot, but "On Gallipoli,"
Let it be said, "he died." Oh, Hearts of Friends,
If I am worth it, keep my memory.
Capt. James Sprbnt.
"AT NIGHT-TIDE"
When all the dalliance days of youth-time are
agone,
When gladness stands usurped by pregnant fears ;
O Spirit of diviner days,
Help me to meet the leaner years !
When Fate's last utterance makes the vacant
chair,
And omnipresent sorrow haunts the night;
O Spirit of diviner days.
Steel me to face the lonely fight !
So stoop, when weary eyes no more may search
the day
When Lethe's pall enwraps the dawn-wind's
breath ;
169
17° FROM THE FRONT
O Spirit of diviner days,
Gird me — that I may valiantly face death !
2ND Lieut. H. E. Whiting-Baker.
SONNET
Look up, O stricken eyes that long have pored
Over the sickliness of a young heart
Diseased with double doubt and the abhorred
Drugs of Self-will and Pity. Scan the chart
Of freedom in a new and noble cause.
The past is dead. A New Age now begins
Of noble servitude to nobler laws
Than those that barred by custom your lame sins.
All that is terrible is yours to face, —
You that once sought the dark noon of the storm
And only found a dust and a disgrace, —
Peril affronts you in heroic form :
Lift up your head. Prove that which was your
boast
Though deemed long dead, — or be for ever lost !
Robert Nichols.
171
THE SILENCE
This is indeed a false, false night;
There's not a soldier sleeps,
But like a ghost stands to his post,
While Death through the long sap creeps.
There's an eerie filmy spell o'er all— •
A murmur from the sea ;
And not a sound on the hills around —
Say, what will the silence be ?
R. J. Godfrey. (A.N.Z.A.C.)
172
CHALLENGE
Go tell yon shadow stalking 'neath the trees
With silent-footed terror, go tell Death
He cannot with Life's vast uncertainties
Affright the heart of Youth ! for Youth cometh
With flush of impulse, passion to defeat,
Undaunted purpose, vision clear descried.
To counteract, lay at Death's unseen feet
The gauntlet of defiance. Far and wide,
Beyond the fear of that unknown exile,
That brim of Time, that web of darkness
drawn
Across Life's orient sky, there breaks a smile
Of light that swells into the hope of dawn :
A dream within the dark, like evening cool.
Like sunset mirror'd in yon darken'd pool.
Sergt. J. W. Streets.
173
I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH
DEATH . . .
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustHng shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air —
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath —
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
174
\
RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH 175
God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear . . .
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year.
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
Alan Seeger.
(Killed in Action, July 5, 1916)
THE DEAD
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead !
There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away ; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth ; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age ; and those who would have
been.
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
Blow, bugles, blow ! They brought us, for our
dearth.
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
Honor has come back, as a king, to earth.
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
176
T H E D E A D 177
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
And we have come into our heritage.
Rupert Brooke.
THE GRAVES OF GALLIPOLI
The herdman wandering by the lonely rills
Marks where they lie on the scarred mountain's
flanks,
Remembering that wild morning when the hills
Shook to the roar of guns and those wild ranks
Surged upward from the sea.
None tends them. Flowers will come again in
spring,
And the torn hills and those poor mounds be
green.
Some bird that sings in English woods may sing
To English lads beneath — the wind will keep
Its ancient lullaby.
178
THE GRAVES OF GALLIPOLI 179
Some flower that blooms beside the Southern
foam
May blossom where our dead Australians lie,
And comfort them with whispers of their home ;
And they will dream, beneath the alien sky.
Of the Pacific Sea.
"Thrice happy they who fell beneath the walls,
Under their father's eyes," the Trojan said,
"Not we who die in exile where who falls
Must lie in foreign earth." Alas ! our dead
Lie buried far away.
Yet where the brave man lies who fell in fight
For his dear country, there his country is.
And we will mourn them proudly as of right —
For meaner deaths by weeping and loud cries :
They died pro patria !
l8o FROM THE FRONT
Oh, sweet and seemly so to die, indeed.
In the high flush of youth and strength and pride.
These are our martyrs, and their blood the seed
Of nobler futures. 'Twas for us they died.
Keep we their memory green.
This be their epitaph. "Traveler, south or west,
Go, say at home we heard the trumpet call,
And answered. Now beside the sea we rest.
Our end was happy if our country thrives :
Much was demanded. Lo ! our store was small —
That which we had we gave — it was our lives."
L. L. (A.N.Z.A.C.)
THE UNBURIED
Now snowflakes thickly falling in the winter
breeze
Have cloaked alike the hard, unbending ilex
And the gray, drooping branches of the olive
trees,
Transmuting into silver all their lead;
And, in between the winding Hnes, in No-Man's
Land,
Have softly covered with a glittering shroud
The unburied dead.
And in the silences of night, when winds are
fair,
When shot and shard have ceased their wild
surprising,
i8i
l82 FROM THE FRONT
I hear a sound of music in the upper air,
Rising and falling till it slowly dies —
It is the beating of the wings of migrant birds
Wafting the souls of these unburied heroes
Into the skies.
M. R. (N. Z. Headquarters.)
"IN FLANDERS FIELDS"
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place ; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
183
l84 FROM THE FRONT
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
LiEUT.-CoL. John McCrae.
A DEAD GERMAN
O mystical and magic moon,
That sheds soft light on this dead face
That's like King Arthur's in his swoon,
O mystical and magic moon,
Tremulously I crave a boon :
"When my times comes, do me this grace,"
O mystical and magic moon
That sheds soft light on this dead face !
Lieut. C. G. L. Du Cann.
185
"I TRACKED A DEAD MAN DOWN A
TRENCH"
I tracked a dead man down a trench,
I knew not he was dead.
They told me he had gone that way,
And there his foot-marks led.
The trench was long and close and curved.
It seemed without an end ;
And as I threaded each new bay
I thought to see my friend.
I went there, stooping to the ground.
For, should I raise my head,
Death watched to spring; and how should
then
A dead man find the dead ?
i86
"l TRACKED A DEAD MAN" 187
At last I saw his back. He crouched
As still as still could be,
And when I called his name aloud
He did not answer me.
The floor-way of the trench was wet
Where he was crouching dead :
The water of the pool was brown.
And round him it was red.
I stole up softly where he stayed
With head hung down all slack,
And on his shoulders laid my hands
And drew him gently back.
And then, as I had guessed, I saw
His head, and how the crown —
l88 FROM THE FRONT
I saw then why he crouched so still,
And why his head hung down.
W. S. S. Lyon.
A^. B. Written in the trenches by "Glencorse
Wood," April 19-20, 1915.
FALLEN
We talked together in the days gone by
Of Hfe and of adventure still to come,
We saw a crowded future, you and I,
And at its close two travelers come home,
Full of experience, wise, content to rest.
Having faced life and put it to the test.
Already we had seen blue skies grow bleak,
And learned the fickleness of fate, firsthand ;
We knew each goal meant some new goal to
seek.
Accepting facts we couldn't understand ;
You seemed equipped for life's most venturous
way —
Death closed the gallant morning of your day.
190 FROM THE FRONT
Oh, many a one still watching others go
Might fall, and leave no such heart-sickening
gap.
What waste, what pity 't seems to squander so
Courage that dared whatever ill might hap.
While laggards, fearful both of worst and best,
Hoard up the life you hazarded with zest !
It seems like waste to others, but to you
And the thronged heroes who have paid the
price.
Yourselves, your hopes, and all you dreamed
and knew.
Were counted as a puny sacrifice —
You knew, with keener judgment, all was
gained.
If honor at the last shone still unstained!
Corp. W. Kersley Holmes.
A GRAVE IN FLANDERS
All night the tall trees over-head
Are whispering to the stars ;
Their roots are wrapped about the dead
And hide the hideous scars.
The tide of war goes rolling by,
The legions sweep along;
And daily in the summer sky
The birds will sing their song.
No place is this for human tears,
The time for tears is done ;
Transfigured in these awful years.
The two worlds blend in one.
191
192 FROM THE FRONT
This boy had visions while in life
Of stars on distant skies;
So death came in the midst of strife
A sudden, glad surprise.
He found the songs for which he yearned,
Hopes that had mocked desire;
His heart is resting now which burned
With such consuming fire.
So down the ringing road we pass,
And leave him where he fell,
The guardian trees, the waving grass.
The birds will love him well.
Frederick George Scott.
MEMORIES
The tall pines tower gauntly
Above my bedroom eaves,
With the moon, like a ghost, behind them
Peering between their leaves.
The air is warm and balmy,
And the hillside bathed in light,
But a restless mood is on me
As I think of another night.
Still more bright was the moonlight,
For the fields were swathed in snow.
And the moon peered down through the
pine-trees,
On the hard, white ground below.
But often to aid the moonbeams
A "starlight" soared, and fell,
193
194 FROM THE FRONT
And now and again, to southward,
The flash of a bursting shell.
Deep, deep black the shadows
On the hard white surface showed,
Of the tall, steep, wooded hillside
Above where the Ancre flowed
Out from the German trenches
Silently through our own,
And we stood by the bank above it,
Leslie and I, alone.
Near us, a watchful sentry.
Gazing across the wire,
And three, in a tiny dug-out.
Crouched round a brazier fire.
We talked, as we stood together.
As we often before had done,
Of the times we should have together.
When at last the war was won !
Much we planned that evening,
MEMORIES 195
Of the wonderful days in store,
When trench life should be as a night-
mare,
And an ugly dream the war.
You went, old man, before me;
You died as I knew you, game;
And "the wonderful days in store" now
Could never appear the same.
With the best of pals to share them
What mad, glad days they would be !
But the best of my pals lies buried
In shell-scarred Picardy.
A cloud drifts over the moonface,
And the air has grown more chill;
I turn from the open window
While the shadow climbs the hill.
But my mind still runs on that evening
196 FROM THE FRONT
When the moon shone through the pines
That grow by the Ancre River,
Behind the British lines;
When Leslie and I together
Stood in the crisp, white snow.
With the dug-out light above us.
And the running stream below;
And spoke of home and dear ones.
And mentioned not the war.
But only the days to follow.
The wonderful days in store.
Lieut, Eric Fitzwater Wilkinson, M.C
THE VOLUNTEER
Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Toiling at ledgers in a city gray,
Thinking that so his days would drift away
With no lance broken in life's tournament:
Yet ever 'twixt the books and his bright eyes
The gleaming eagles of the legions came,
And horsemen, charging under phantom skies,
Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme.
And now those waiting dreams are satisfied ;
From twilight into spacious dawn he went ;
His lance is broken ; but he lies content
With that high hour, in which he lived and
died.
And falling thus he wants no recompense,
197
?8 FROAI THE FRONT
Who found his battle in the last resort ;
Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence,
Who goes to join the men of Agincourt.
Herbert Asquith
GOOD-BY
Evacuation of Gallipoli, IQ15
It has come to the last and it's good-by, Bill,
I'm sick at the heart and sad
To leave you sleeping, old cobber, the best
That ever a swaddy had.
Somebody's bungled the job, it is said,
Who, it isn't for me to know,
But leaving the place where you fought and
died
Is stabbing my heart to go.
The lanes of mounds on the beach and hills,
In the spots that we fought to win,
The pledges of victories tardily won,
The graves of an Empire's kin.
199
200 FROM THE FRONT
We're going, but over Australia way
They will speak with a welling pride
Of sons who have answered the call to arms
From the city and countryside.
And whether we're leaving or whether we stay
It is much in a way the same,
For deep in the side of the green tree — Fame —
Is bitten Australia's name.
I'm going, but hoping to meet again
On the level the wily Turk,
For fighting and crouching in traverse and
trench
Is a sordid kind of work.
But war is war, and it's little to say
That our enemy played the game ;
He fought as clean as a soldier may,
But I hate him just the same.
G O 0 D - B Y 201
For I can't forget when you took the count
In a stunt to the left of Quinns',
A night as black as the ace of spades
Or a fallen Satyr's sins.
Soft sentiment isn't for soldier men;
But I swear when it's steel to steel
The point of my bayonet dripping red
Will prove of the things I feel.
So good-by, Bill, if the Fates are kind
When the wattle trees burst to flame,
I will twine a wreath at my saddle bow
To honor my comrade's name.
Or dozing along on the old stock horse,
In the wake of the straying sheep,
Little doubt that I'll dream of this shell-torn
spot
Where I left you here to sleep.
202 FROM THE FRONT
Asleep with honor I leave you now,
You died as you wished to die.
The days will be longer without you, Bill;
Good-by, old fellow, good-by.
Frank E. Westbrook.
February, ipi6.
MATEY
(Cambrin, May, 1915)
Not comin' back tonight, matey,
And reliefs are comin' through,
We're all goin' out all right, matey,
Only we're leavin' you.
Gawd ! it's a bloody sin, matey.
Now that we've finished the fight,
We go when reliefs come in, matey,
But you're stayin' 'ere tonight.
Over the top is cold, matey —
You lie on the field alone,
Didn't I love you of old, matey,
Dearer than the blood of my own?
You were my dearest chum, matey—
203
204 FROM THE FRONT
(Gawd! but your face is white)
But now, though reliefs 'ave come, matey,
■ I'm goin' alone tonight.
I'd sooner the bullet was mine, matey —
Goin' out on my own,
Leavin' you "ere in the line, matey,
All by yourself, alone,
Chum o' mine and you're dead, matey,
And this is the way we part.
The bullet went through your head, matey,
But Gawd ! it went through my 'eart.
Patrick MacGill.
PRAYER FOR OUR ARMIES AT THE
FRONT
O Lord of Hosts, Whose mighty arm
In safety keeps mid war's alarm,
Protect our soldiers at the Front
Who bear of war the bitter brunt.
And in the hour of danger spread
Thy sheltering wings above each head.
In battle's harsh and dreadful hour
Make bare Thine arm of sovereign power,
And fight for them who fight for Thee,
And give Thine own the victory.
O, in the hour of danger spread
Thy sheltering wings above each head.
If by the way they wounded be,
O listen to their plaintive cry,
205
206 FROM THE FRONT
And rest them on Thy loving breast
O Thou on Whom the cross was pressed ;
And in the hour of danger shed
Thy glorious radiance o'er each head.
When pestilence at noonday wastes,
And death in triumph onward hastes,
O Saviour Christ, remember Nain,
And give us our beloved again.
In every ward of sickness tread.
And lay Thine hand upon each head.
O Friend and Comforter divine,
Who makest light at midnight shine,
Give consolation to the sad
Who in the days of peace were glad.
And in the hour of sorrow spread
Thy wings above each drooping head.
Rev. Thomas Tiplady, Chaplain.
SONNET
Coming in splendor thro' the golden gate
Of all the days, swift passing, one by one,
Oh, silent planet, thou hast gazed upon
How many harvestings, dispassionate?
Across the many-furrowed fields of Fate,
Wrapt in the mantle of oblivion,
The old, gray, wrinkled Husbandman has gone^
Sowing and reaping, lone and desolate —
The blare of trumpets, rattle of the drum,
Disturb him not at all — He seej,
Between the hedges of the centuries,
A thousand phantom armies go and come.
While Reason whispers as each marches past,
"This is the last of wars,— this is the last !"
Lieut. Gilbert Waterhouse.
(Wounded and Missing, July i, 19 16)
207
WAR
Where war has left its wake of whitened bone,
Soft stems of summer grass shall wave again,
And all the blood that war has ever strewn
Is but a passing stain.
Leslie Coulson.
208
INDEX OF AUTHORS
PAGE
A., H.
On a Troopship, 1915
(In Spectator, vol. 117) 150
Anzac Book, The (Written and illustrated in
Gallipoli by the Men of Anzac, Cas-
sell & Company, Lond. Funk & Wag-
nails Company, N. Y., 1916).
A Wail from Ordnance. Lieut. Kininmonth 54
Our Fathers, Captain James Sprent . . 161
A Confession of Faith. Capt. James Sprent 167
The Silence, Private R. J. Godfrey ... 172
Marching Song, C. J. N 40
The Happy Warrior, M. R 46
Hill 60, C.'J. X 135
The Graves of Gallipoli, L. L 178
The Unburied, M. R 181
AsQuiTH, Herbert
The Volunteer 197
("The Volunteer and Other Poems," Sidg-
wick and Jackson, Ltd., Lond., 1915).
Blackall, Captain C. W.
"Attack!" 89
Song of the Trench i
The Ration Rasher 57
("Songs from the Trenches," John Lane,
Lond., 1915).
209
2IO INDEX OF AUTHORS
PAGE
Brooke, Rupert
The Dead 176
The Soldier 159
("Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke,"
John Lane Company, N. Y., 1915).
Brown, Sergt. Frank S. (P. P. C. L. I.)
"Fall In" 5
The Veteran 95
Glory 107
("Contingent Ditties and Soldier Songs
of the Great War," Sampson Low,
Marston, Lond., 1915).
Cooper, Epic Thirkell
Dawn in the Trenches 13
Night Attack 92
Night in the Trenches 70
The Choice 141
The Mercy Ship 36
("Soliloquies of a Subaltern Somewhere
in France," Burns and Gates, Ltd.,
Lond., 1915).
Corbett, Lieut. N. M. F. (R.N.)
Lines Written Somewhere in the North Sea 124
The Sailing of the Fleet 20
("Naval Motley: Verses Written at Sea
during the War and Before It," Me-
thuen and Company, Ltd., Lond., 1916).
CouLsoN, Leslie (London Regiment Royal
Fusiliers)
War 208
When I Come Home 129
("From an Outpost and Other Poems,"
Erskine MacDonald, Ltd., Lond., 1917).
INDEX OF AUTHORS 211
PAGE
Du Cann, Lieut. C. G. L.
A Dead German 185
("Triolets from the Trenches," Erskine
MacDonald, Ltd., Lend., 1917).
"Etienne" (Lieut. R. N.)
The Hounds of the Night 26
("Verses from the Grand Fleet," Erskine
MacDonald, Ltd., Lond., 1917).
Frankau, Gilbert
Ammunition Column 3^
Signals ^
("The Guns," Houghton, Mifflin & Com-
pany, 1917)-
Godfrey, Private R. J. (7th Aust. Field
Amb.)
The Silence 172
(See "Anzac Book").
GuRNER, Ronald
A Quiet Night 74
('War's Echo," T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd.,
Lond., 1917).
Graves, Arnold F.
Holding the Bridge 112
("The Long Retreat and Other Doggerel,"
John Murray, Lond., 1915).
Herbert, A. P.
The Bathe 38
Some Reflections on the Evacuation . . 146
("Half-Hours at Helles," B. H. Blackwell,
Oxford, 1916).
212 INDEX OF AUTHORS
PAGE
Hodgson, William Noel (Late Lieut. 9th
Devons, M. C.)
Before Action 163
Glimpse 157
("Verse and Prose in Peace and War,"
Smith, Elder and Company, Lond.,
1917).
Holmes, Corp. W. Kersley
Peter's Pudding 59
The Trumpeter 14
("Ballads of Field and Billet," Alex.
Gardner, Paisley, 1915).
Fallen 189
The Soldier Mood 52
Horse Bathing Parade 34
("More Ballads of Field and Billet,"
Alex. Gardner, Paisley, 1915).
KiNiMONTH, Lieut. (A.O.C.)
A Wail from Ordnance 54
(See "Anzac Book").
Knight-Adkin, Captain J. H. (Royal Glou-
cestershire Reg't)
No Man's Land 67
In No Man's Land with the Night Patrol 75
(In London Spectator, vol. 116).
L., D.O.
At Sea 165
("Songs of a Subaltern," Chapman and
Hall, Ltd., Lond., 1915).
Lee, Sergt. Joseph (ist Co., 4th Battalion,
Black Watch)
Four Rye Sheaves 132
(In Spectator, vol. 117).
INDEX OF AUTHORS 213
PAGE
Lee, Sergt. Joseph (ist Co., 4th Battalion,
Black Watch) — Continued.
My Rifle 43
Tommy and Fritz 143
("Ballads of Battle," John Murray, Lend.,
1916).
L. L.
The Graves of Gallipoli 178
(See "Anzac Book").
Lyon, W. S. S.
Easter at Ypres: 1915 I53
Lines Written in a Fire Trench .... 72
I Tracked a Dead Man Down a Trench . 186
("Easter at Ypres 191 5 and Other
Poems," James Maclehose & Sons,
Glasg., 1916).
Macartney, Lieut. C. A.
Ballad of a Cathedral Close 127
("Poems," Erskine MacDonald).
MAcGit^L, Patrick
In the Morning 81
Before the Charge 78
Letters 61
Matey 203
("Soldier Songs," E. P. Dutton and Com-
pany, N. Y., 191 7).
IVIcCrae, Lieut. Col. John
In Flanders Fields 183
(Punch, December 8, 1915.)
N., C.J.
Marching Song 40
Hill 60 . . . 135
(See "Anzac Bcok").
214 INDEX OF AUTHORS
PAGB
Nesbitt, H. a. (M.A.)
Neuve Chapelle 1915 79
1915 152
("Neuve Chapelle and Other Poems,"
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Com-
pany, Lond., 1916).
Nichols, Robert
Sonnet — "Look Up, O Stricken Eyes that
Long Have Pored" 171
("Invocation; War Poems and Others,"
Elkin Mathews, Lond., 1915).
"Observer, R.F.C."
A Song of the Air 16
Two Pictures 18
("Oxford and Flanders," B. H. Clackwell,
Oxford, 1916).
R. M.,
The Happy Warrior 46
The Unburied 181
(See "Anzac Book").
S ARSON, H. Sm ALLEY (Private 1st Canadian
Contingent)
To Sister E. W 138
("Field and Hospital," Erskine MacDon-
ald, Ltd., Lond.).
ScoTT, Frederick George (ist Canadian Di-
vision, B. E. F.)
A Grave in Flanders 191
("In the Battle Silences : Poems Written
at the Front," Constable and Company,
Lond., 1916).
indkx of authors -15
PAGE
Seeger, Alan
I Have a Rendezvous with Death . . . 174
("Poems," Copyright by Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons, N. Y., 1916).
Service, Robert W.
The Volunteer 10
Wounded 100
("Rhymes of a Red Cross Man," Barse
and Hopkins, N. Y., 1917).
Shakespeare, William G.
The Cathedral I55
("Ypres and Other Poems," Sidgwick and
Jackson, Ltd., Lend., 1916).
Sprent, Captain James (A.M.C, 3rd Field
Amb.)
Our Fathers 161
A Confession of Faith 167
(See "Anzac Book").
Steele, Howard
The Men Behind the Tube 22
("Cleared for Action," T. Fisher Unwin,
Lond., 1914).
Stewart, Capt. J. E, (M. C.)
Envoy 136
("Grapes of Thorns," Erskine MacDon-
ald, Ltd., Lond., 1917).
Streets, Sergt. J. W. (13th Batt. York Reg't)
At Dawn in France 121
A Lark Above the Trenches 131
"Go Tell Yon Shadow Stalking 'neath the
Trees" 173
("The Undying Splendour," Erskine Mac-
Donald, Ltd., Lond., 1917).
2l6 INDEX OF AUTHORS
PACK
TiPLADY, Rev. Thomas (Chaplain)
Prayer for our Armies at the Front . . . 205
("In the Trenches and Other Poems,"
Hemel Hempstead, 1916).
Turner, Corp. Jack
"Fags" 48
(Copyright by The Imperial Tobacco Co.,
Newfoundland),
Waterhouse, Lieut. Gilbert
Sonnet 207
("Railhead," Erskine MacDonald, Ltd.,
Lond., 1916).
Westbrook, Frank E. (Gunner 4th Battery,
2nd Brigade, Australian Field Artillery).
' The Boys Out There 139
Brown Eyes — Song 134
"Goodbye" — Evacuation of Gallipoli 191 5 . 199
("Anzac and After," Duckworth & Co.,
Lond., 1916).
Whiting-Baker, 2nd Lieut. H. E.
At Night-Tide 169
(In "Made in the Trenches," Articles and
Sketches contributed by Soldiers, Geo.
Allen and Unwin, Ltd., Lond., 1916).
Wilkinson, Eric Fitzwater (M. C. Lieut.
West Yorks-Leeds Rifles)
Memories 193
Twentieth Century Civilization ..... 85
("Sunrise Dreams and Other Poems,"
Erskine MacDonald, Ltd., Lond.)
WoDEHOusE, E. A. (2nd Lieut., Scots Guards)
Next Morning . 118
(In Fortnightly Review).
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
PAGE
A few clouds float across the grand blue sky . 34
A peculiar stench is the smell of the trench . . 57
A signal flutters at the Flagship's fore ... 20
Above the distant skyline by degrees .... 36
All night the tall trees over-head 191
As after the rains 26
As some far sw^immer, turning, views once
more 135
Before me on the crown 127
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich dead ! . . 176
Boots, belt, rifle, and pack 40
By all the glories of the day 163
Come, friend, and swim. We may be better
then 38
Coming in splendor thro' the golden gate . . . 207
Close behind a wall of sandbags, covered up
with yellow mud 92
Dawn 18
Dawn o' day and birds a-singing 13
Farewell ! the village leaning to the hill . . . 150
Five men over the parapet, with a one-star loot
in charge 75
217
2l8 INDEX OF FIRST LINES
Four rye sheaves to be my bed 132
Go tell yon shadow stalking 'neath the trees .
He hides behind his sand-bag .
Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent . .
Hope and mirth are gone. Beauty is departed
Hushed is the shriek of hurtling shells; and
hark !...... . .
of an
I am only a cog in a giant machine, a link
endless chain . . . .
I'd rather clean a bayonet from the scarlet stain
upon it ... . . .
I have a rendezvous with death .
I'm the soldier's surest friend . . .
I meet with the boys and the gay toasts pass
I saw you fooling often in the tents
I tracked a dead man down a trench
H I should die, think this of me . .
In Flanders fields the poppies blow .
In my sandy dug-out by the sea . .
Is it not strange ? A year ago today
It has come to the last and it's good-by, Bill
Look up, O stricken eyes that long have pored
Night after night, day after day . . .
Night on the plains, and the stars unfold
No Man's Land is an eerie sight . . .
Not comin' back tonight, Matey , . .
173
143
197
155
131
31
141
174
43
139
157
186
159
183
46
100
199
171
112
121
203
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 219
PAGE
Now snowflakes thickly falling in the winter
breeze 181
O Lord of Hosts, Whose mighty arm .... 205
O mystical and magical moon 185
Oh ! two brown eyes where love-lit shadows
swim 134
Oh ! we are a ragged, motley crew 5
Once more sits Mahomet by Helles' marges . . 146
Only if I am remembered 136
Sez I : My Country Calls ? Well, let it call . 10
So lie you low, and watch the rise 74
Star-shells rising all around us ..... . 70
The battleship, she rules the seas ..... 22
The darkling night, crowning the aery vault . 165
The firefly haunts were lighted yet ... . 81
The herdman wandering by the lonely rills . . 178
The hot wax drips from the flares 28
The laggard hours drift slowly by 124
The Morning Star is fading from our sight . . 79
The night is still, and the air is keen .... 78
The Sacred Head was bound and diapered . . 153
The tall pines tower gauntly 193
There came a pudding from Peter's people . . 59
There's a roar like a thousand hells set free . 85
This is indeed a false, false night 172
This is the song of the blooming trench ... I
220 INDEX OF YIRST LINES
PAGE
This is the song of the Plane i6
'Tis midnight, and above the hollow trench . . 72
Today the sun shines bright 118
We had a little set-back 107
We hear him daily, far too soon 14
We're only in the ordience 54
We talked together in the days gone by . . . 189
We were eating chip potatoes underneath the
April stars 52
Well, boy, you're off to war 95
Wandering spirits, seeking lands unknown . . 161
When all the dalliance days of youth-time are
agone 169
When I come home, dear folk o' mine . . . 129
When stand-to hour is over, we leave the par-
apet ..... 61
When the cold is making ice cream of the mar-
row in your bones 48
Where war has left its wake of whitened bone 208
Who would remember me were I to die . . . 167
Year of high hope and disappointment deep . . 152
You are standing watch in hand 89
You gave me a white carnation 138
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